This page contains information about a past slam season in Worcester. For current information please go here.
| Let the games begin. | How does this work? | What are the rules? | So who won? | 2002 National Poetry Slam |
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October 14th begins the new slam season in Worcester with the first qualifying slam for the 2002 Worcester slam team. Many of this years team members have said they don't plan on trying to make the 2002 team which leaves the field wide open.
Wondering what this slam thing is all about? Take a detour to the PSI FAQ page for all the info you need.
Worcester holds qualifying slams monthly from September through April. Qualifying slams are 2 rounds with 6 or 8 openings. They follow the open mic and are that weeks feature. A panel of 5 judges is chosen from the audience. The judges score each poem Olympic style (0.0 to 10.0). The high and low scores are dropped, the remainder added and the result is the score for that poem. Two competitors with the highest cumulative score after two rounds advance to the semi-finals.
Two semi-finals are held. The first, in December, will feature the winners of qualifying slam in September, October, and November. The second, in April, features those who have won the qualifying slams in January, February, March and April. In the past semi-final slams have been five round events.
The top four finishers in each semi-final round will compete against one another in the finals in May 2002. The 2001 finals were a seven round competition with elimination after the 3rd and 4th rounds.
Fall qualifying slams are scheduled for 10/14, 11/11, 11/18 and 12/9 with the semi-final on 12/16. Winter/Spring qualifying slams are currently scheduled for 01/27, 02/10, 3/10, and 04/07 with the semi-finals on 04/21. The finals to select the 2002 Worcester Slam team will take place on May 5th.
As with all competitions there are rules to follow. Worcester follows the rules as laid out by PSI with respect to time penalties, etc. The basics are covered in the MC spiel, a variation of which follows.
What you are about to witness is a poetry slam. The competitors, of whom there are 8, will perform their own original work, 3 minutes in time length or less. They will use no props, no animal acts and no musical accompaniment.The judges, of whom there are 5, will take those hard wrought words and score them, Olympic style, zero to ten. Zero... the worst poem ever written. So bad that the poet should be forced to play in traffic so we never have to hear it again. Ten... the perfect poem. World peace and spontaneous orgasms throughout the room. We'll drop the high, we'll drop the low, add them together and poof, we have a score. The poet with the highest combined score after two rounds is declared the winner. Judges, please use one decimal point as it helps avoid ties.
Poets who go over 3 minutes are taken out back and shot. Either that or we give them a ten second grace period and then start deducting half a point for every 10 seconds they go over after that. Judges, don't worry about the time, we'll take care of it after you give your scores.
That covers the basics. The official rules can be found up on the Poetry Slam, Inc. website. You can check them out here.
The axiom states that the point is not the points, the point is poetry. That doesn't stop the competitors from trying their best to score the holy grail perfect score nor does it keep the audience from letting the judges know what they think of the scores. For those keeping track of such things here are the scores to date.
2002 Team Finals
| 04/21/2002 | Round 1 | Round 2 | Round 3 | Round 4 | Round 5 | Round 6 | Total | The finals were a 6 round slam.
After the 3rd rounds the competitor with the lowest cumulative
score was dropped.
Competitors are listed in the order they appeared in the first round. In the 4th round the order was relisted high to low. Various reorderings took place throughout the competition. The names shown in bold have won a place on the 2002 Worcester Slam team. |
| Ed | 26.7 | 27.1 | 27.1 | - | - | - | 80.9 | |
| Debbie | 26.5 | 27.3 | 28.1 | 27.4 | 27.7 | 27.9 | 164.9 | |
| Rushelle | 27.5 | 27.5 | 27.5 | 27.8 | 27.6 | 28.2 | 166.1 | |
| Jon | 27.3 | 27.2 | 27.2 | 27.4 | 27.5 | 28.5 | 165.1 | |
| Seren | 27.0 | 27.6 | 28.1 | 27.9 | 28.4 | 28.4 | 167.4 | |
| Bill | 27.5 | 27.5 | 28.4 | 28.1 | 28.1 | 27.7 | 167.3 | |
| Corrinna | 28.4 | 28.1 | 28.1 | 28.4 | 28.0 | 27.8 | 168.8 |
Notes - Nina, who qualified to be in the finals, choose not to compete for personal reasons. Based on the past precedent (prior knowledge of a drop out for Finals), we attempted to contact the next place finisher from the spring Semis to see if he wanted to compete in the Sunday Finals. He was a no show and the show went on without him.
Pictures of the finalists and the 2002 Worcester Slam Team can be found in our Photo Gallery.
Spring 2002 semi-finals
| 04/21/2002 | Round 1 | Round 2 | Round 3 | Round 4 | Round 5 | Total | The semi-final was a 5 round slam. After the
3rd rounds the competitors with the 2 lowest cumulative score were
dropped.
Competitors are listed in the order they appeared in the first round. In the 4th round the order was relisted high to low. In the 5th round the order was relisted low to high (based on end of 3rd round score). The top 5 competitors move on to the finals because one of the Fall semi-finalists has dropped out. |
| Rushelle | 25.6 | 28.7 | 28.0 | 28.4 | 29.3 | 140.0 | |
| Seren | 26.3 | 28.9 | 28.9 | 27.7 | 29.6 | 141.4 | |
| Jesse | 25.0 | 25.5 | 26.2 | - | - | 76.7 | |
| Bill | 27.6 | 26.6 | 28.8 | 27.1 | 29.7 | 139.8 | |
| Chris * | - | - | - | - | - | - | |
| Skinny White Boy | 26.9 | 27.3 | 28.0 | 26.4 + | 27.6 | 136.2 | |
| Jon | 27.3 | 26.8 | 28.1 | 28.2 | 28.3 | 138.7 | |
| Debbie | 26.6 | 27.0 | 27.0 | 28.4 | 27.4 | 136.4 | |
| * Chris did not show up before his turn in the first round and so was disqualified. He actually never showed up as far as we know. | + The piece ran 3:19.4 incurring a 1/2 point deduction. The original score was 26.9. | ||||||
| The names shown in bold advance to the finals in May 2002. | |||||||
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Take me to the Fall semi-finals.
Spring 2002 qualifying slams
| 01/27/02 | Round 1 | Round 2 | Total | 02/24/02 | Round 1 | Round 2 | Total | |
| Lia | 24.1 | 29.7 | 53.8 | Gwen * | 24.5 | 28.3 | 52.8 | |
| Mary Kelly | 24.8 | 24.2 | 49.0 | Debbie | 25.9 | 24.9 | 50.8 | |
| Debbie | 23.8 | 27.2 | 51.0 | Seren | 27.0 | 28.4 | 55.4 | |
| Jon | 27.1 | 27.8 | 54.9 | Dave | 23.3 | 24.5 | 47.8 | |
| Rushelle | 28.3 | 26.9 | 55.2 | Jesse | 24.1 | 23.8 | 47.9 | |
| Charlene | 22.5 | 22.5 | 45.0 | |||||
| * The second place finisher, Gwen, has dropped out of the semi-finals. Debbie will take her place. (04/05/02) | ||||||||
| 03/10/02 | Round 1 | Round 2 | Total | 04/07/02 | Round 1 | Round 2 | Total | |
| Aaron | 17.1 * | 24.6 | 41.7 | Paul C. | 25.4 | 27.9 | 53.3 | |
| Debbie | 25.9 | 27.6 | 53.5 | Mike | 25.0 | 26.4 | 51.4 | |
| Charlene | 22.3 | 21.9 | 44.2 | Chris J. | 28.8 | 28.8 * | 57.6 | |
| Stanley | 24.3 | 25.4 | 49.7 | Kazin | 24.6 | 26.2 | 50.8 | |
| JJ | 24.0 | 25.5 | 49.5 | Skinny White Boy | 26.0 | 28.1 | 54.1 | |
| Jesse | 27.5 | 27.0 | 54.5 | Chris P. | 25.2 | 27.0 | 52.2 | |
| Bill | 28.1 | 29.2 | 57.3 | Brenda | 27.2 | 26.2 | 53.4 | |
| Jack ** | 29.3 | 29.6 | 58.9 | Athena | 26.0 | 26.4 | 52.4 | |
| * unintentional prop violation, the penalty for which is 4 points off the lowest score in the slam. His piece originally scored a 21.1 in the round. | * Piece ran 3:18.57 incurring a 1/2 point deduction. Original score was 29.3. | |||||||
| ** Though he aceived the high score in the slam Jack has elected to not advance to the semi-finals. Jesse, the third highest scorer in this slam will advance in his stead. | ||||||||
The names shown in bold advance to the spring semi-finals in April.
Fall 2001 semi-finals
| 12/16/2001 | Round 1 | Round 2 | Round 3 | Round 4 | Round 5 | Total | The semi-final was a 5 round slam. After the
2nd and 3rd rounds the competitor with the lowest cumulative score
was dropped.
Competors are listed in the order they appeared in the first round. In the 4th round the order was relisted high to low. In the 5th round the order was relisted low to high (based on end of 3rd round score). |
| Ed | 25.8 | 26.6 | 24.2 | 25.7 | 27.7 | 130.0 | |
| Nina | 26.4 | 26.0 | 27.2 | 26.8 | 26.9 | 133.3 | |
| Alex | 25.9 | 26.6 | 26.8 | 25.6 | 26.2 | 131.1 | |
| Woody | 26.3 | 25.5 | 24.7 | 25.3 | 25.0 | 126.8 | |
| Daniel | 23.6 | 23.9 | - | - | - | 47.5 | |
| Corrinna | 27.6 | 27.6 | 25.7 | 27.5 | 28.4 | 136.8 | |
| Judi | 25.6 | 22.2 | 24.8 | - | - | 72.6 | |
| Hunter | 24.0 | 25.1 | 23.9 | 23.4 | 24.6 | 121.0 |
The names shown in bold advance to the finals in May 2002.
Update - on 04/17/2002 Alex won a spot on the 2002 Cantab slam team and has elected to drop out of the finals for the 2002 Worcester team. The top 5 finishers in the spring semi-finals will move on to the finals to compete against Ed, Nina and Corrinna.
Take me to the Spring semi-finals.
Fall 2001 qualifying slams
| 10/14/01 | Round 1 | Round 2 | Total | 11/11/01 | Round 1 | Round 2 | Total | |
| Daniel | 25.6 | 25.5 | 51.1 | Alex | 26.0 | 28.5 | 54.5 | |
| Paul | 25.1 | 23.2 | 48.3 | Judi | 22.7 | 25.5 | 48.2 | |
| Debbie | 25.1 | 24.8 | 49.9 | Woody | 28.3 | 28.4 | 56.7 | |
| Nina | 26.7 | 26.0 | 52.7 | Paul | 24.6 | 20.0 | 44.6 | |
| Alex | 22.9 | 25.8 | 48.7 | Ed | 24.5 | 26.9 | 51.4 | |
| Jesse | 22.2 | 0.0 * | 22.2 | Kazin | 26.0 | 25.0 | 51.0 | |
| Victor | 19.6 | 20.9 | 40.5 | Shana | 25.2 | 24.3 | 49.5 | |
| Ed | 26.0 | 23.6 | 49.6 | |||||
| * was a violation of the no costumes rule, the penalty for which is no score in the round. His piece originally scored a 20.0 in the round. | ||||||||
| 11/18/01 | Round 1 | Round 2 | Total | 12/09/01 | Round 1 | Round 2 | Total | |
| Judi | 24.6 | 28.2 | 52.8 | Victor | 23.4 | 26.6 | 50.0 | |
| Corrinna | 27.5 | 29.3 | 56.8 | Hunter | 27.2 | 26.1 | 53.3 | |
| Paul | 19.4 | 25.6 | 45.0 | Shana | 24.7 | 24.6 | 49.3 | |
| Ryk | 25.7 | 27.4 | 53.1 | Debbie | 23.4 | 25.1 | 48.5 | |
| Bill | 28.5 | 26.4 | 54.9 | Judi | 25.1 | 26.2 | 51.3 | |
| Shana | 23.5 | 26.6 | 50.1 | |||||
| Ed | 28.7 | 26.4 | 55.1 | |||||
| Kazin | 27.2 | 26.0 | 53.2 | |||||
The names shown in bold advance to the fall semi-finals.
The 2002 Nationals will be held in Minneapolis, MN from August 13th through 17th. The host hotel will be the Crown Plaza, 618 Second Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN. Call them at 1-800-556-7827 for reservations.
The website for NPS 2002 is still up. Check it out for yourself at http://www.nps2002.com.
Last Update: 05/06/2002