Rachel McCrum  pipped Scotland’s makar, Liz Lochhead, by half a point to win the second heat of  the BBC poetry slam in Edinburgh on Tuesday night, and a place in Saturday’s final.  McCrum won with a powerful poem, King Leer, which she dedicated to sexploitation film director Russ Meyer, about the sex industry and the changing and coarsening of attitudes and perceptions; how “cutie begot groovy begot nudie”. The battle was close from the outset, with all six contestants ranked closely together at the end of the first round, which was also won by McCrum, who is originally from Northern Ireland and now based in Edinburgh.

In a reversal of fortunes  Lochhead took the second round with a wry selection of 60s recollections from the Life of Mrs Riley, including happy memories of “John and Paul and ma Dansette”, wearing “angora in 64”, and the let-down of a beau promising something nice in his pocket, which was only “a  packet of three”. 

The other four contestants were Bram Gieben, Dan Simpson, Michelle Madsen and Martin Daws. Monday night’s heat was won by Colin McGuire. The judges were poet and spoken word Free Fringe organiser Fay Roberts; Scotland’s Stanza festival director Eleanor Livingstone; and the 2012 Scottish slam champion, Kevin Cadwallender. The compere was Young Dawkins, who clearly knew the ropes, as another former Scottish slam champion, and whose potted biographical details of the contestants included a neat message from Liz Lochhead about page and performance poetry: “It’s not either … or, but both … and.”