The Sedona Poetry Slam will get into the spirit of Halloween on Saturday, Oct. 25, with costumes and props encouraged for the second slam of its 17th year. Performance poets bring high-energy, competitive spoken word to the Mary D. Fisher Theatre starting at 7:30 p.m.
Sedona, AZ — This slam, arriving just before Halloween, encourages poets and audience members alike to dress in costume. For this one event, props and costumes are welcome on stage and poets are encouraged to perform poems related to their costumes.
A poetry slam is like a series of high-energy, three-minute one-person plays, judged by the audience. Anyone can sign up to compete in the slam for the $100 grand prize, $50 second-place prize and $25 third-place prize.
Slam poetry is an art form that allows written page poets to share their work alongside theatrical performers, hip-hop artists and lyricists. Poets come from as far away as Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff, competing against adult poets from Sedona and Cottonwood, college poets from Northern Arizona University and youth poets from Sedona Red Rock High School. All types of poetry are welcome on the stage, from street-wise hip-hop and narrative performance poems, to political rants and introspective confessionals. Any poem is a “slam” poem if performed in a competition. All poets get three minutes per round to entertain and inspire the audience with their creativity.
The prize money is funded by Verde Valley poetry supporters Jeanne and Jim Freeland.
Email foxthepoet@yahoo.com to sign up early to compete or by the Friday before the slam or at the door the day of the slam. For more information, visit sedonafilmfestival.com or foxthepoet.blogspot.com. For a full list of slam poetry events in Arizona, visit azpoet.com.
What is Poetry Slam?
Founded at the Green Mill Tavern in Chicago in 1984 by Marc Smith, poetry slam is a competitive artistic sport designed to get people who would otherwise never go to a poetry reading excited about the art form when it becomes a high-energy competition. Poetry slams are judged by five randomly chosen members of the audience who assign numerical value to individual poets’ contents and performances.
Poetry slam has become an international artistic sport, with more than 100 major poetry slams in the United States, Canada, Australia and Western Europe. Slam poets have opened at the Winter Olympics, performed at the White House and at the United Nations General Assembly and were featured on “Russell Simmons’ Def Poets” on HBO.
Sedona has sent four-poet teams to represent the city at the National Poetry Slam in Charlotte, N.C., Boston, Cambridge, Mass., Oakland, Calif., Decatur, Ga., Denver and Chicago.
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