Organizing a Poetry Slam

Long before I began writing poetry, which only started about a year ago, I loved attending poetry slams. In fact, I’d say I fell in love with poetry because of poetry slams. Before this past weekend, I’d never participated in a poetry slam, although I’d done a few poetry readings. I’ve wanted to start a poetry slam in our community for a little over a year now, but as I scouted different locations to host one, I was never satisfied with the places I found. Plus, although there was interest in having one in our community, there weren’t people lining up to help me pull one together. So, although it was on my list of things to do, it was not a high priority because I knew it would take up a lot of my time if I had to plan the whole thing on my own.

So when our local Barnes & Noble decided to host it and asked for volunteers, I couldn’t have been more pleased, and offered my help right away. Two of my problems were instantly solved. I didn’t have to look for a location, and I didn’t have to do it alone.

We had the first poetry reading/slam this past weekend, and I thought I’d write this post in hopes that it might help someone else plan a poetry slam. I’ve provided a list of things that we considered, some of which were specific to our location, and some hiccups we ran into that we plan to smooth out as we do more of these.

1. Poetry Reading vs. Poetry Slam: The first thing we considered was whether to have a poetry reading or poetry slam. A poetry reading provides an opportunity for poets of many different styles to read their poetry for an audience and is non-competitive. It can even allow people to read the work of other poets, which is great practice for speech and debate participants and for other people who enjoy participating in poetry, but may not yet write their own poems. A poetry slam is a competition that is scored by a panel of judges with elimination rounds, where the poets perform their original work. There are usually three rounds, with a winner being announced at the end. We decided we wanted to have an event for all types of poets, so we opted to have a poetry reading for the first hour of the event, followed by a poetry slam.

2. Microphone: One of the most important elements of reading poetry is that the audience has to be able to hear it. A microphone is an important piece of equipment to have at a poetry slam. A community poetry slam is a great place for people to try out reading/performing their pieces for an audience. It is both competitive and supportive. This means that some people who are trying it out for the first time will not be as capable of projecting their voice as other participants, and it’s important that the audience is still able to hear.

This is where we hit a snafu with our reading/slam. While we discussed a mic from day one of our planning, and Cassandra from Barnes & Noble was amazing to provide one for the event, it wasn’t tested in the space beforehand. She did a quick test to make sure it worked, but it was never tested in the space where the reading/slam was held. It turns out that it just didn’t work in the space we had. People could hear no difference when the mic was used. It was quickly discarded. Luckily, even the shyest performers projected their voices and I believe the audience could hear all of them. Honestly, I was surprised. I’ve never attended a poetry slam or reading where a few of the performers weren’t really hard to hear, even with a mic. It’s my hope that we’ll get a working mic that people can hear in the space we have for the next one.

I would even suggest a mic stand of some sort, that way people don’t have to fidget with the mic and their hands are free. Some poets are very animated during poetry slams and need their hands to be free.

3. Background noise: This is related to the last one. The audience needs to be able to hear the poet. Background noise is going to be an issue just about anywhere you go. In our case, the issue turned out to be the background music the store played. The audience asked if the store could turn off the music, and I had to run in search of someone to make that request. This was something that we had not thought of in advance, but now we know to adjust the volume of the music before the event starts next time.

4. Podium: We figured we’d have a lot of people come out who wanted to participate, but had a bit of anxiety about reading in front of an audience, so Cassandra and I agreed a podium would create a nice barrier for poets. It would offer a little buffer along with a place to set the poet’s pages or phone so their hands could be free. While some performers have their pieces memorized, others are much more comfortable having a copy of their piece in front of them. We wanted to provide an environment that catered to all types.

5. Marketing: An important part of holding a poetry slam is getting the word out, so people will come out and watch it. We had a unique obstacle, because Barnes & Noble is a corporation, flyers for the event had to be approved by people at a higher level than the local store. Those were not approved prior to the event, so we were not able to put them around town at some of the locations where we thought people would see them. These things just sometimes happen, and hopefully we’ll get it all worked out before the next one. We were able to get the word out through social media though, and still had a great turnout. We have plans to notify the junior highs, high schools, and community college for the next one. Poetry slams tend to really grow in the fall when students start school.

6. Feedback/Judging: Scores and other feedback are an important part for the poets participating in poetry slams, so they know how their performance went and can pick up on things to improve. I think positive feedback is especially important for those who are just starting out. It’s a scary thing to get up there and read your work in front of an audience, and even scarier to have it judged. This was a learning experience for both Cassandra and I, and although we discussed the judging portion beforehand, the plan for judging was not as solid as I would have liked. Poets didn’t get to see their scores, and while the slam started with three judges, it ended with only two. In the future, I’d like to come up with a plan for recruiting judges and possibly a more reliable plan on scoring.

7. Participants: I think this will change as we have more slams, but I had to do a lot of recruiting of poets to perform during this first one. Many arrived to see what it was all about, but only a few brought something with the intention of participating. A few brought something, but needed encouragement to participate, and I’m so glad they let me talk them into it, because they were amazing. And a few really stepped up and performed pieces they hadn’t really prepared for, and one person was kind enough to recite a piece and wrote down another piece from memory to perform for the slam. Having a signup sheet will help give you an idea of how many poets you have participating. There will just about always be some people who sign up late, but this will help with time management for the event as well as knowing if you need to try to talk some reluctant or nervous poets into participating.

8. Consistency: One of the things that I anticipate will help this poetry reading/slam grow over time is consistency. Our plan is to have the event once a month on the second Sunday. I think this will keep the event in people’s minds and they don’t have to search for the date and time every month. Having consistency in starting times and how the event is run will also provide comfort to the poets who attend the event, and I think more will participate when they feel comfortable with how things go.

There is so much more I learned and could tell you all about, but this post is already much longer than I anticipated, so hopefully, this provides some interesting insight into poetry slams and will provide some good points to think about for anyone who wants to plan a slam.