The Slam is Back!
After a three-year hiatus, our teen poetry slam festival returns March 18, 2023 at William Philip Hall on the campus of UW-Tacoma.
We will be hosting a day of activities, including a morning workshop, community building activities, lunch, and an afternoon poetry slam. For those of you familiar with our previous slam, this is Crossing the Street and the slam rolled into a one-day event.
The slam will feature five teams: Lincoln HS, SAMI, SOTA, Stewart MS, and the Willie Stewart Academy. This year, we are prioritizing Tacoma Public Schools and keeping the slam small. In coming years, we will open registration for other schools to participate as teams. Poet ages 13-19 from Tacoma / Pierce County can sign up to be indy poets for the slam.
The morning session (Crossing the Street) is open to all Tacoma / Pierce County middle and high school students and poets regardless of school status, ages 13-19. You must register to attend the morning session (see below).
There is no fee to attend the morning session or the slam!
CROSSING THE STREET
Crossing the Street is our pre-slam event featuring workshops, an open mic, lunch, and more! It is open to poets ages 13-19 from Tacoma / Pierce County.
It takes place from 9:30am-1pm on March 18, 2023.
INDEPENDENT POETS
We have 8 spaces available for independent poets (poets without teams) in the slam. Poets must be between 13-19 and must reside or go to school in Tacoma / Pierce County. The slam will take place at 2pm on March 18, 2023.
Poets must also attend Crossing the Street in order to slam! (But you only need to fill out this form, you don't need to fill out the Crossing the Street form, too>)
SLAM FORMAT & RULES
01 Mandatory Events
There are two mandatory events for all poets and coaches:
1) March 18 (9:30am-1pm): Crossing the Street Pre-slam event. A gathering of all the teams and independent poets. Please arrive by 9:30 a.m.
2)
March 18 (2pm): The slam. Yay!
02 Structure/Scoring
The slam is four rounds. Indies, duos, trios, and quads are allowed.
There are five judges, each giving a score from 1-10. We drop the highest and lowest scores and add the middle three. (Ex.- A poet getting scores of 8.0, 8.5, 9.0, 9.5, 10 would have the total score of 27 [8.5+9.0+9.5].)
A team’s score will be all the poets’ from that team added together.
03 Rules for Poems
There are three basic rules for the slam:
1) Poems should be three minutes or less.
2) No props are allowed.
3) No derogatory, inflammatory, or vulgar language is allowed in the poems.
If you have questions, let us know!
