Slam Poetry
A Poetry Slam is a specific type of poetry event cleverly disguised as a competition. Think of it like a **battle of the bands** but for poetry. There are rules of engagement and a winner is selected, which means there are losers too. However, the prestige and status of winning a Slam is minimal compared to the joy of knowing that, win or lose, as a poet you accomplished some seriously amazing and important things, just for having participated:
- By sharing your voice you give others courage and permission to share theirs!
- By performing your poetry, you embody your love for your art and give it a new life
- You just performed in a slam, and were judged by people who admitted they didn’t know a damned thing about poetry. And now they have an opinion about it. I guarantee they’ll go to the next slam they see.
- You will have found yourself in community!
- Please feel free to help us grow this list. If you can think of another item to list here, please shoot us an email.
Historically, poetry slams were more about building community surrounding poetry than they were about competition. The excitement surrounding the competition is what allows for the community building. Poetry slams offer a type of accessibility to people who may have never thought they would enjoy poetry. We here at MVPC wish to embrace Slam as a form of community outreach.
Also, we wish to show the power performance of your poetry can have not only to those in the audience, but to you! Performance gives your poem a body. It turns something whispered into something done. In that way, Slam poetry becomes a community where poets learn how from each other how to love our poetry even more.
Here are some Slam Poetry resources:
This page will be a (1)general page about slam, (2) list of links to our specific slam events, and (3) forms (or links to forms) to sign up for upcoming slams