Congratulations to the members of the 2004 Worcester Slam team... Alex Charalambides, Urban, Morris Stegosaurus and Ryk McIntyre.

Scores from the finals for the 2004 Worcester Slam team held on May 23rd can be found below. Thanks for a great slam season!!!

So what's this Slam thing anyway?

We're glad you asked that... Slam poetry can be moving, funny and deadly serious, sometimes all in the same poem. Poets come up and perform their original work for the audience. Five people randomly chosen from the audience before the bout will give each poem a score from 0.0 to 10.0, with 10 being the highest. The high and the low scores are dropped, and the three remaining scores are added. Each poet has a time limit of three minutes, with a 10-second grace period. After the grace period is passed, points will be deducted from the poet's final score.

Sound like fun? The Poets' Asylum holds both just-for-fun, themed, slams and open slams. Check out the Sunday schedules for the dates of upcoming open (also called qualifying) slams.

Looking for more info? Head on over to the PSI FAQ page for all the info you need.

2004 Slam Structure

The next open qualifying slam will be on February 22, 2004.

We've switched back to the old structure, details of which are below. While the goals of last year (encouraging more people to slam and keeping the competition open until the end of the season) were worthwhile we found last years system of standings and rankings confused many people.

Here's the structure for the 2003/2004 season:

1. We will hold an open (also called qualifying) slam once each month from August through April. Each slam will be 2 rounds and will allow 8 poets to compete. Open Slams will follow the standard format outlined in the MC spiel, which is show below.

2. The two competitors with the highest cumulative score after two rounds advance to one of two semi-finals held in December (for slams in August - December) or April/May (for slams held in January - April). Semi-finals will consist of 3 rounds with a no repeat rule; the poems used in semi-finals can not be used in finals.

3. The top finisher of an open slam wins $10. Second place receives a $5 prize. There is no prize money in semi-finals or at finals.

4. The top four finishers in each semi-final will compete against one another in the finals in May 2004. This will be a four round competition. Remember that poems used in semi-finals can not be used in the finals.

5. Poets going to finals must commit to being on the Worcester team (should they win a spot) at the close of semi-finals or withdraw. If they withdraw the next poet in the semi-final bout will compete in finals.

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.

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2003-2004 Slam Scores

This page contains information about a past slam season in Worcester. For current information please go here.

On November 16th the Asylum held an open slam with the top three finishers going on to a regional slam off at the Lizard Lounge on December 7th. The winner of the slam off will read at opening night of Def Jam on Broadway in Boston.

2004 Team Finals

The competitors shown in bold were the top winners. Additional scores above.

Congratulations to the members of the 2004 Worcester Slam team - Alex Charalambides, Ryk McIntyre, Morris Stegosaurus, and Urban.

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2004 Indy World Poetry Slam

The first individual WORLD POETRY SLAM CHAMPIONSHIP 2004 (iWPS) was held on February 4-7, 2004 in Greenville, South Carolina. It was hosted by Wits End Poetry and sponsored by Poetry Slam, Inc..

• Buddy Wakefield is our iWPS Champ and deservedly so. He was absolutely awesome.
• Celena Glenn and Ed Mabrey tied for second.
• Rachel Mckibbens finished in third and was on fire.
• Ali Langston, Alvin Lau,Paradox, Beth Bullmer, Corbet Dean, The Black Falcon, Jonathan Brown and Xodus also gave hot performances on the final stage.

The Worcester representative to iWPS was chosen on January 4th in a open slam off. This was a four round slam with a couple of twists. Each round had a different time limit, we dropped some poets after the second round, cleared the scores and held 2 more rounds. At the end of the night eight tenths of a point separated first and second place and 3 points separated first and sixth (we dropped four poets after the second round). Excellent work from all of our slammers - Adam, Morris, Sue, Bill, Corrina, Urban, Raphael, Ruff Draft, Ryk and the silent one. Plus a round of applause for our judges and audience, we couldn't do this without you.

The winner of the slam and the Worcester rep to the 2004 iWPS is... drum roll please... Bill MacMillan. Congratulations to Bill!!!

Below are the scores from each round. The scores from round 1 and 2 are shown first. These are followed by the rules from rounds 3 and 4.

The 6 top scoring poets moved onto the third round. Their scores were wiped out, putting everyone on an even footing. The order was randomly drawn before the third round began.

A full set of the rules we used in the slam off can be found here.

Additional information on the 2004 iWPS, including an excellent FAQ, can be found at http://www.witsendpoetry.com/worldpoetryslam.html.

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2004 National Poetry Slam

The 2004 National Poetry Slam were held in St. Louis, MO from August 3 through 8th.

A website for NPS 2004 went online in April '04. You can find scores and such there.

And the winner is... the team from Hollywood (CA). Second place went Denver followed by Dallas in third and Berkeley in fourth. Congrats to all those who made the finals stage.

Worcester finished in the middle of the pack, 35th out of 69 teams. Though reports are a bit spotty they seem to have had a good time and that's all that really matters.

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Archived Info

Information on the past six years in Worcester Slam can be found in the links below.

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