IMSU Graduate Walks Home With N100,000 After Epic Battle At War Of Words 3

A spoken words poet Graciano Gracious Enwerem has walked out of Lagos with N100,000 cash prize in his kitty after emerging victorious at the War of Words Slam Poetry Competition organised by i2X Media.

Poets and poetry enthusiasts from all over Nigeria converged at the Ozone Lounge in Yaba, Lagos on Sunday June 22, 2014 to witness an epic .

The poets cooked up a pot of conflicting emotions with their metaphors, rhymes and puns that left the audience screaming on their feet all through the evening.

Poems presented by the contestants broached on politics, love, religion, terrorism fashion, technology, society and marriage.

Graciano who eventually emerged winner of the N100,000 top prize is a former student of Imo State University, Owerri and poetry presenter at RHYTHM FM 93.7, Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

A crowd favorite from round one, Graciano held the audience to ransom with his original, alliteration-filled, metaphor-soaked rhythmic poems.

The Port-Harcourt based poet so impressed the panel of judges, made up of three seasoned Performance Poets/Spoken Word Artists; Donna the poet, Torpedo Mascaw and Plumbline, that he scored a perfect score in both the semi-final and final stages of the fierce contest.

After an electric first round Adedayo Adeyemi Agarau, Glory Ify Njoku, Ekam Prestine Romanus, James Ademuyiwa, Ubong Sunday Titus (aka Forsythe Bogani), Jemimah Ugiagbe (aka Mymah) Graciano Enwerem, Aquila Kalagbo and Chinedu Martins (aka I am Rage) made it to the semi-finals.

Graciano, Aquila, I am Rage, Mymah and Forsythe Bogani, who had to win a head-to-head bout following a 3-man tie at 5th spot, made it to the final where the top three emerged as winners.

After he was announced winner of the competition, Graciano added icing to the cake with an inspiring performance as his thank-you speech.

He then received a check for N100,000 from the organisers.

Second placed Aquila McRansom Kalagbor, whose last rendition had the entire audience crying, went home with a brand new Samsung S4.

The 2nd Runner up, I Am Rage won N10,000 worth of airtime.

Convener of the event Olumide Olugbile Holloway aka Olulu said the vision of War of Words is to “create a vibrant Spoken Word Poetry industry in Nigeria, where poets can earn a living from their performances.”

"Our mission is to use Spoken Word Poetry to inspire, educate, entertain and inform people all over the world.

"When we started our events in 2012, we had less a 100 people in attendance, now our events records over 200 people in attendance, and with our twitter updates, online streaming and post event activities (videos, pictures and event reports) we have over 1,000 people listening, watching and enjoying our events," Olulu said.

"We get mails and videos from people all over Nigeria and the world."

Such is Olulu’s passion for the Spoken Word art that he has been able to sustain the War of Wards events for three seasons with private fundswithout external sponsorship.

He told Student Pulse that he is however open to sponsorship for subsequent editions.

There will be three more editions of the Poetry Competition in 2014, August, November 2014 and December 2014.