CHECK OUT THESE CAMPUS ARTICLES!

Slam Poetry is BLOWIN’ UP at Middlebury!

Check out these two articles featured in The Campus:

http://www.middleburycampus.com/node/15439

http://www.middleburycampus.com/node/441

Look out for a blog post for The New England Review re: MiddSlam’s trip to the Yale Regional Poetry Slam!

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Look out for these around campus!

FINALS! FRIDAY AT 8PM ATWATER DINING HALL!

MiddSlam Presents:

GRAND SLAM CHAMPIONSHIPS

Where: Atwater Dining Hall

When: This Friday, 8 PM

What??!?: Last week, MiddSlam held 3 preliminary open poetry slams for the campus. The top 3 poets from each round qualified for this week’s CHAMPIONSHIP. 9 Poets (Anna Gallagher, Maya Goldberg-Safir, Abigail Borah, Lara Shabb, Carolyn Orosz, Emily Wheeler, Emily Luan, Claire Hodgdon, and Olivia Grugan) will compete for FOUR SPOTS on the MiddSlam team– which will head to NATIONALS IN CALIFORNIA.

The competition will feature the DARTMOUTH SLAM POETRY TEAM

and an intermission performance by RIDDIM.

*Live Music* will also be featured. 

Come support poetry! And dancing! And intercollegiate slammin’!

suggested donation $5

GO/MIDDSLAM

GO/Poorform

P.S. We’ll be having a fundraiser during the performance. If you want to win a DATE one of the aforementioned poets (or one of our hosts –Rae Colombo and Cody Gohl), you will have a chance to do so. Purchase a raffle ticket for a dollar, and you might get the chance for romance with the wordsmith of your choice!

❤ MiddSlam 

RULES FOR SLAMS

RULES FOR MIDDSLAM’S CUPSI QUALIFYING PRELIMINARY BOUTS:

WHEN: FRIDAY 17^TH AND SATURDAY THE 18^TH

2 BOUTS ON FRIDAY, A 3rd BOUT ON SATURDAY IF NECESSARY

1st BOUT ON FRIDAY IS AT 6PM, 2nd BOUT IS AT 8PM

 

1. Each poem must be of the poet’s own construction
2. Each poet gets three minutes plus a ten second grace period, after which .5 points will be subtracted for each additional ten seconds (or fraction of ten seconds) that the poet exceeds 3:10
3. NO PROPS (do not indicate crutch if you say “my alcoholism is a crutch for my sex life”) That’s minus 2 points.
4. NO COSTUMES. Same Deal as props. Don’t get naked or wear a tutu.
5. No MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS OR RECORDED MUSIC. You can beat box, hum, sing, yodel, but that’s it.
6. NO GROUP PIECES; this is an individual competition
7. 5 RANDOMLY SELECTED JUDGES will score your poem 0-10.
   0 = you took a shit on stage, 10= multiple orgasms.
   The lowest and highest scores will be dropped for a final score of 0-30.
8. 8 poets will compete per bout, first come first serve
9. top 5 scores from the 1st round go to round 2
10.  top 3 from round 2 (scores averaged from both rounds) go to finals next week.
11. If you don’t make it to round 2 or Finals on your first night, you can retry in the second bout or on Saturday—any additional spots for those nights will be given out on a first come, first serve basis. This is complicated, but I hope it makes sense.

12. You cannot do the same poem in consecutive rounds, so you’ll need at least two poems.

FINALS NEXT WEEK:

1. The top 9 poets from preliminaries (3 per bout) will compete in finals
2. The top 6 from the first round will compete in the second round.
3. The top four (average scores from round 1 and 2) will qualify for NATIONALS IN CALIFORNIA. They will be the team, so they better have free schedules for wade Lewis and CUPSI.
4. These four members will decide/ vote on the 5^th member (the alternate) based on the culmination of the slams. They will elect the “missing piece” who may or may not have been appreciated by the judges.

slam.jpg.tiff

Upcoming Spring Slams

Hi!

MiddSlam is hosting 2 slams in the first weeks of Spring. Start writing now!!

There will be 2 preliminary bouts on February 17th (time and location TBD).
A “priliminary bout” is a round of poetry where 4-10 poets compete ( a little wiggle room on those figures) individually and receive scores from 5 randomly selected audience members.  Poets will perform ONE ORIGINAL POEM that is 3:10 or less. Anything more, points will be deducted. Memorization is HIGHLY encouraged. Your score will suffer if you are reading off of a piece of paper.

Bout A and Bout B will have a randomly selected group of poets. They will compete against one another and the poets with the TOP SCORES from the two preliminary bouts will then compete in GRAND SLAM the following week on February 24th (time and local also TBD).

The poets with the TOP FIVE scores will qualify for MiddSlam’s TEAM which will go to NATIONALS IN CALIFORNIA. ALLLSO, we will go to a slam at SUNY NEW PALTZ which will also be baller.

Nationals, or CUPSI, is an event that gathers 3-50 schools from around the country and puts on a giant poetry competition. It is 3 or 4 days of intense workshops, bouts, slams, parties, third rounds, bonding time, naps, laughs, car rides, meals, love nests, etc. etc. etc. IT IS THE MOST FUN. You want to come to this thing. The organizing force behind MiddSlam will vouch that CUPSI last year was one of the most amazing experiences we’ve ever had while attending Middlebury.

SO WHAT YOU NEED TO DO TO PREPARE:

Write and practice some poems. Know them like the back of your hand. Be confident. Contact middslam@gmail.com if you have any questions or concerns, or if you wanna PRACTICE! 

This requires a good deal of commitment in regards to time and passion. We want people to be excited about slam poetry, and we want it’s presence on campus to grow. If you think you’ve got the guts, the time, the love, please sign up. Even if it’s scary and weird– cause we know! Getting on stage and sharing rhythmic rhyming personal stories and opinions can be TERRIFYING, but you never know unless you try.

Join our slamily. xoxo MiddSlam

SIGN UP TO COMPETE IN THE OPEN SLAM ON JANUARY 20TH!