Oral Tradition

The Breath In Poetry Collective is so excited to announce what is sure to be an amazing event! We have collaborated with the Unveiling Africa Foundation (www.unveilingafrica.org) to put together a night of awe-inspiring spoken word and music. Oral Tradition will be a night of story telling and testimony through the use of poetry and music. If you’re a lover of spoken word or music, this is one event you absolutely cannot miss. We’ve got some of Edmonton’s finest talent, including members of the Inaugural Edmonton Poetry Slam Team.

Our main feature all the way from Ottawa, for the first time in Edmonton, The Recipe!

Who is The Recipe?

The Recipe is the super group of spoken word poetry in Canada. On November 14th, 2009 team Ottawa was crowned the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word Champions in Victoria BC. The group’s chemistry and talent was too good to waste so they stayed together to create the entertaining, enlightening entity called The Recipe. Each member is a nationally acclaimed, award-winning artist. Combined they have shared the stage with Amir Sulaiman, Shihan and legendary poet Saul Williams. Members have performed their art across the globe, most recently The Recipe member Ian Keteku, competed in France at the World Poetry Slam and was crowned world champion! This group’s skill knows no bounds, and we are excited to bring them here to Edmonton!  Visit them here

Rouge Summer Slam!!

Hey Poetry Lovers!

Our Rouge Poetry Slam series was such a hit, that we’ve decided to keep the momentum going with the Rouge Summer Slam! 

6 poets will compete each slam night in the hopes of being crowned the champion and going home with the cash prize at the end of the night, as well as securing a spot in the Rouge Summer Slam Finals in an attempt to win the Grand Cash Prize 

Come out to cheer on your favorites and see Edmonton poets at their best! It is going to be amazing!

What is a Poetry Slam?

Simply put, poetry slam is the competitive art of performance poetry. It puts a dual emphasis on writing and performance, encouraging poets to focus on what they’re saying and how they’re saying it.

Who can Slam?

Anyone who has original works of poetry is invited to join! Poets are to have 3 poems prepared; each poem should be no more than 3 minutes long. Sign up for the slam will be done in advance up to one hour before the Slam. Only 6 poets will slam a night.

What are the rules?

• There are 3 rounds in the slam. The poet with the highest scoring average at the end of the 3 rounds will be crowned slam champion. The 1^st and 2^nd place contestants will advance to the slam finals.
• Each poet will have a maximum of 3 minutes to perform their poem. Time is started as soon as the poet engages the audience, whether by body language or speech. The poem must be an original written by the poet performing it. If the poem exceeds 3 minutes, a 10 second grace period is given. After that 0.5 points will be deducted from the poet score for every 10 seconds over the time allotted.
• No props, no music, no costumes and only one poet may read at a time.

 

How is it judged?

• Judges will be chosen at random from the audience members. The rest of the audience is encouraged to influence the judges, by cheering for their favourite poet.
• Poets are judged based on the quality of their written work, performance and audience reaction. The judges will be using a numeric scale, 1 – being not so good to 10 – being excellent.
• The highest and the lowest scores are dropped and an average of the remaining points is used as that poets final score for the round.
• Each round is sudden death so the poets with the lowest score will be eliminated and the remaining poets will advance to the next round. Only the top 4 poets will advance to the second round. The top two poets in the second round will then battle it out in the final round and a winner is chosen.

When are the slams?

July 6th (Slam Series Kick off)

July 20th

August 3rd

August 17th

August 31st

September 14th

September 28th (Final Slam)

 Sign up @ 8pm, Slam @ 9pm; $5 entry.