Join us for the Rouge Poetry Slam!
6 poets will compete each night in the hopes of being crowned the champion and securing a spot on the 2012 Edmonton Slam Team that will go on to represent Edmonton at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word 2012
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. Spots for the slam are first come first serve!
What are the rules?
- There are 3 rounds in a slam
- Each poet will perform one 3 minute poem per round
- 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.
- The poets cumulative score at the end of the 3 rounds will determine the winner for the night
- No props, no music, no costumes and only one poet may read at a time.
- Each poet must slam a minimum of TWO times in the Rouge Poetry Slam series for a chance to qualify
- Each poet will be assigned a ranking score based on their placing in each slam. The rankings will be as follows:
1st Place Ranking – 10
2nd Place Ranking – 6
3rd Place Ranking – 3
- Poets are encouraged to slam as many times as they would like, however only their TOP TWO rankings will be used to calculate their final ranking in the slam qualifiers. The maximum total ranking that any poet can get is a 20.
- The top 9 poets based on their top two rankings will make the Finals
- The top 5 poets based on their cumulative score for the 3 rounds at Finals will make the team
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.
- The poet with the highest cumulative score for of the 3 rounds wins the slam. Rankings are given to each poet based on a 1st, 2nd and 3rd place finish
When are the qualifying slams?
January 29
March 12
March 26
April 9
Please note we will be charging $5 at the door on slam nights as part of our fundraising efforts to support the team at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word 2012
