Show:
Poets
Slam
Performance
Terms
Quotes
100
"Somewhere There is a Poem"
Gina Loring
100
The role is many things to many people across the Poetry Slam scene, but at the Nuyorican, it means that this person is in charge of the Friday Night Slam in a consistent, ongoing manner, over a significant period of time. This person books Spotlight Poets for the evening, finds audience judges each Friday Night and is involved in the National Poetry Slam event each year. The SlamMaster may also be known as the emcee, host, even curator. And FYI, women SlamMasters at the Nuyorican tend to call themselves "SlamMistress."
What is a Slam Master?
100
Poetry is not specifically created for any competition, but rather it is a hybrid of words and dramatic expression, much like a miniature theatrical performance. Generally, this would also need to be memorized work. It can range from a strict metered poetic form to the more broadly prosaic. It does not require a time limit. And while some performance poetry can become a successful Poetry Slam piece, the term reflects a performance that doesn't necessarily receive a score.
Performance Poetry is...
100
The prominence or emphasis given to a syllable or word. In the word poetry, the accent (or stress) falls on the first syllable.
Accent
100
Robert Frost (1875-1963) American Poet
" poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It finds the thought and the thought finds the words."
200
"This Type Love"
Shihan
200
The person at any Poetry Slam who adds up the judge's scores and reduces them to a single number for each round. This can be a volunteer from the audience, or someone assigned in the job for the evening by the SlamMaster. This person is not a judge or a performing poet that evening. At the Nuyorican, a judge is simply an audience member, and hopefully decent at adding up numbers. No other criteria is necessary.
Who is the Score Keeper?
200
Spoken Word can encompasses a broad area, and includes Slam Poetry and Performance Poetry. Storytelling and novel-reading, political speeches even...all considered Spoken Word. Reading a poem, (contrasted to "performing it") is obviously a Spoken Word event.
What is Spoken Word?
200
A Japanese poem composed of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. Haiku often reflect on some aspect of nature.
Haiku
200
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) American poet
If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.
300
"The --- --- Poet"
Blair Wingo
300
At the National Poetry Slam event, this is called the "Calibration Poet", but at the Nuyorican, we call these poets "Sacrifical Goats" and it means the same thing. This is a poet who is not participating in the Poetry Slam that night, but comes up at the start of the show as a way to give inexperienced judges a chance to practice their scoring skills before the "real" Slammers for that evening perform.
What is a Sacrificial Goat?
300
There is no time limit to the length of a Slam Poet's performance at the Nuyorican, but through the years, a three-minute time limit has been strictly enforced at the National competition, with points taken off your score if you exceed. But Performance Poets, for instance don't focus on keeping it within a time limit, as their work may not be created for Poetry Slam alone. Most artists interested in the Poetry Slam model will tend to keep their pieces within a reasonable amount of "short-attention-span" time and their goal is generally the three-minute time frame.
What is Time Limit?
300
Two or more lines of poetry that together form one of the divisions of a poem. The stanzas of a poem are usually of the same length and follow the same pattern of meter and rhyme.
Stanza
300
T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) American-English poet and playwright
Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those we have personality and emotion know what it means to want to escape from these things.
400
"ETD's"
Eric Vaughn
400
Winner of the Grand Slam Finale, an event that happens once a year at the Nuyorican. The idea here is that this poet is competing with four others who have also won Semi-Final Slams during that year but emerges victorious on this particular night.
What is the Grand Slam Finale?
400
Literary Word Choice
What is Diction?
400
The repetition of similar consonant sounds, especially at the ends of words, as in lost and past or confess and dismiss.
Consonance
400
Plato (BC 427-BC 347) Greek philosopher
Poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history.
500
[Brave New Voices]Philly
Sean Bell
500
The number of times a poet gets up and performs a poem varies from venue to venue, but it is most commonly a three-round event, meaning that the poet must have at least three different poems ready to perform. The winner obviously has gotten the highest score at the final round.
What are Rounds?
500
Clear and Precise dictation.
What is Clarity?
500
"An indirect or passing reference to some event, person, place, or artistic work, the nature and relevance of which is not explained by the writer but relies on the reader’s familiarity with what is thus mentioned. The technique of allusion is an economical means of calling upon the history or the literary tradition that author and reader are assumed to share. . . ." (CB)
Allusion
500
William Shakespeare
"Listen to many, speak to a few."