Think poems are boring and out of date? Think again.

Performance poetry gives young people a voice – and it could help overcome some of the barriers associated with dyslexia.

Two Glasgow women who became writers after long battles with the condition are about to stage the first ever national youth poetry slam.

Anita Govan and Rachel Jury have spent years inspiring young people to find their voices through the spoken word, demolishing old-fashioned ideas about poetry in the process.

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Now they are over the moon that a long-held dream is about to be realised.

“After 11 years of running small, local poetry slams, it’s incredible to think a national event will now take place,” smiles Anita, a former Stirling Makar and experienced community drama worker. “Poetry gives young people the chance to use their own voices to describe how they see the world.

“They can speak out and don’t need to worry about sentence structure or spelling to read out loud. The whole idea of the slam events is to show young people language isn’t scary. Whole classes get involved and they create some amazing stuff – in other events we have seen Islamic kids talking about war, London kids talking about knife crime – sometimes, it’s so good it stops you in your tracks and more often than not it is more truthful and poignant than anything adults come up with.”

Changing perceptions of poetry is tough.

“I remember what poetry was like when I was at school – it was all analysis and structure and a little like pulling the legs off a dead insect so that all you are left with is a dead insect,” grins Anita.

“Hopefully poetry slams show you can think about it in a different way.”

Anita’s love of poetry goes all the way back to her childhood. At the age of 10, she couldn’t read or write.

“Not much was known about dyslexia back then,” she recalls. “It was 1975, I was ten and despite having an above-average IQ, I still couldn’t read or write. I was used as a test case by the local authority to help prove dyslexia existed.

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“But my mum read me poems all the time, and I’d learn them by listening to her. I knew Scots Wha Hae off by heart – I won a poetry competition by reciting it.

“One of my teachers gave me a poem a week to learn and memorise and by the time I was at high school I knew Blake, Auden, Burns – the lot. It inspired my love of poetry.”

Like Anita, Rachel Jury’s dyslexia was undiagnosed until she was in high school.

“Back then, the school’s solution if you were struggling in a reading group was just to take you out of it and put you in a slower reading group,” she explains.

“When I was 12, my mum and dad saw the actress Susan Hampshire speaking about her experience of dyslexia and they suddenly wondered if that was what the problem was for me.”

Rachel, who founded community arts group conFAB, is delighted the poetry slam has taken off.

“Scots’ love of poetry goes all the way back to flyting, which were big poetic debates in the 15th century,” she smiles. “We are very excited about staging the first ever national young person’s poetry slam – it’s a great way to get kids excited about poetry and perhaps it will also help them overcome the barriers to language that exist for some people too.”

Dyslexia Scotland is a partner in the event. Chief executive Cathy Magee explains: “When Anita contacted me to ask if Dyslexia Scotland would like to become involved as partners in the first ever Scottish Youth Poetry Slam, I was intrigued and keen to learn more.

“Rachel and Anita are published, accomplished writers who run creative writing workshops across Scotland, and they are also both dyslexic and both had extremely negative experiences of education and schooling.

“They have both used their own experiences of education to challenge prejudices and negative attitudes about poetry and dyslexia and to enable young people with dyslexia to find ways of enjoying experimenting with words.”

Cathy adds: “Anyone who has experienced Anita’s performances at Dyslexia Scotland’s events over recent years has been inspired, entertained and enthused by the freedom she shows in playing with words and creating new and different meanings and patterns.

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“She has brought poetry alive to many people with dyslexia (and those who work with them). We hope that the poetry slams will open up exciting opportunities for every young person who takes part, including those with dyslexia.”

Heats are underway for the event - Bellahouston Academy, from Glasgow, will join schools from all over Scotland in workshops across the country in the lead up to the national final at the Beacon Arts Centre in Greenock on October 27.