Emma Ward, 18, was recently selected to appear in Rhyming Thunder, a collection of work by young poets. She performs in Bristol at Arts House on Thursdays and at Poetry Pulpit on the first Sunday of every month.
"There is something very liberating about sharing personal poems with strangers. I love the fact that a poem changes for each audience - some lines are funny sometimes, others not. The audience aren't as invisible as they hope to be.
"Trains is about a girl from Stockport that I met in the Outer Hebrides a few summers ago. It's also about the North/South divide and the cycles and rhythms of life. It's quite an old poem but I think it's still my favourite.
"I see spoken word getting bigger and more popular, reaching more people through expanding genres and blurring lines between different types of performance. You can do what you like, literally and I'm sure that will appeal to many more people in the future.
"The poets that inspire me are those that are organising events and loyal to the scene in Bristol like Sally Jenkinson, Jeremy Toombs and Andi Langford-Woods.
"Poetry is one of the oldest cultural forms and I like the idea of continuing that in a modern context with contemporary and powerful subjects that get people thinking."