On the day of the competition, the venue was packed. The poetry category which I was participating in would be held for three days; preliminary or elimination round, all one hundred and fifty contestants would be quizzed and only the best ten would pass to the next round which was the semi-finals. These ten would then compete against each other and the winning two could then proceed to the finals.
The finals had three rounds in total and would be held in the morning, afternoon and evening. The first round was the 'bell-in' round, the second was the 'random draw' round, the third was to write a poem on the spot based on the given theme which would be disclosed then.
