This Gomeroi man just took home the country's highest slam poetry award

The 44-year-old's poem about the Stolen Generation was crowned the winner by audience vote at the Opera House.

Rob Waters performs at the Sydney Opera House. While he's been 'slamming' for 10 years, he says he's told stories forever.

Rob Waters recent triumph at the Australian Poetry Slam national final hasn't quite sunk in yet.

The Gomeroi man says he's still processing the win that came before it.

"It's just been a crazy few days. I won the New South Wales final the day before I won the Australian Finals, so even that still hasn't sunk in yet."

Both are victories the 44-year-old can be proud of: the Slam awards the largest spoken word prize in the country, and Waters' win at the Sydney Opera House last Sunday was the culmination of 70 heats held across the continent.

He says the thought of winning never entered his mind.

"I was just humbled to be able to go there and share a story and compete," he told NITV.

"I couldn't believe the New South Wales win, and then I performed the first poem at the Opera House and heard the scores. I was like, 'I don't know if I'm getting through to the next round.'

"And then top five were announced, and the last one that was announced is my name."

Through several rounds, Waters eventually went down to the wire with a young competitor from Victoria, 16-year-old K.J. Hayward.

"We tied. So we had to do a slam off, a poetry slam off, and then we tied again, which was crazy! They awarded her the 'Youth Champion'. And then myself, the overall champ."

Waters with fellow competitor and champion K.J. Hayward.

It was Waters' crowning moment, but he says it was a long road that led him there.

"I've been doing slam for five or ten years. But I've been writing forever. I've written a play, short stories, that kind of stuff. My first poem was published when I was, like, 15 years old."

He says storytelling is a natural fit for Blakfullas.

"We've been telling stories in this country since the first sun came up. So it's continuing a family tradition."

Confronting uncomfortable truths

Waters' winning poem confronted the dark reality of the Stolen Generations, focusing on one of the most notorious institutions in the nation's history.

"It's about the Kinchella Boys home and the news recently that said there may have been grave sites there," he said.

"It's a very, very heavy bomb. But it's a story I think needs to be told."

At a time when the idea of listening to First Nations people is the biggest subject in the country, Waters says he finds slam poetry an easier way to bring up tough subjects.

"There's something in the way that you deliver [slam poetry] ... It's about the performance of it and the delivery of it and where you can emphasise different points and words.

"A lot of my stuff's really heavy and can come across as angry sometimes, I suppose. But you don't want to do that all the time.

"We have to find a little bit of balance."

Performing over the last decade, and having written his whole life, Waters says he feels a shift in the way First Nations stories such as his are being received these days.

He says it's especially obvious in front of a youth-oriented crowd such as can be prevalent at slam shows.

"I suppose a lot of those old attitudes and old ways of knowing and doing in Australia are starting to change," he said.

"People are more open to new, different voices.

"One of the the coolest things was [K.J.] the young girl that got the junior prize, she's only 16 and just started writing a couple of months ago.

"And then there's me, 40-something-year-old Gomeroi fella from Tamworth.

"It doesn't get much more different than that."