Steel City Poetry Slam

The Pittsburgh Poetry Collective’s poetry slam league.

Now that you have ventured onto our webpage, you may be asking yourself “what is a poetry slam?” The Poetry Slam Poetry originated in 1986 at the Get Me High Lounge in Bucktown, Chicago. A poetry slam is a poetry competition where various individuals are given an opportunity to present and perform original works of poetry to an audience staged as an interactive show. It puts a dual emphasis on writing and performance, encouraging poets to focus on what they’re saying and how they’re saying it. Poets receive a numerical score for their work based on the poets’ content and performance from judges typically selected from the audience. If you would like to compete in the Steel City Slam, our regular shows are open – sign up when you show up.

If you need more information (you know who you are), here are the slam rules and some of our organizational beliefs and expectations.  

Rules:

Though rules vary from slam to slam, the basic rules are:

Each poem must be of the poet’s own original composition / construction;

Each poet gets a set limit of time in minutes (plus a ten-second grace period) to read one poem per round.  The most common time limit is three minutes, and some slams have time limits of four, two, or one minute. Points are deducted for violating the time limit;

The poet may not use props, costumes, musical accompaniment, or musical instruments;

Scores are assessed on a zero to 10 scale with one decimal place.  Of the scores the poet receives from the five judges, the high and low scores are dropped and the middle three are added together, giving the poet a possible score of 0-30 points. 

All poets (including the sacrifice poet) who compete in the Steel City Slam receive 1 participation point towards selection for Grand Slam and future marquee shows.
Top placing poets receive higher total points: 3rd Place – 3 points | 2nd Place – 4 points | 1st Place – 5 points

Participants are welcome to review the scoresheet at any time.

The sign-up list for the Steel City Slam and Open Mic becomes available at 7:00 PM sharp at the venue where the slam is being held (currently the second Tuesday-ish at Poetry Lounge, sometimes on a Wednesday at The Pitch on Butler, and sometimes other places! Check the events page!) Open slam – sign up when you show up!

What can the audience do?

The audience can respond to the poets or the judges in any way they see fit. The audience is encouraged to make noise: Please snap or clap or boo or cheer at the conclusion of every poem, during scoring, or even during the poem (respectfully).

What is slam poetry?

It’s a trick! There is no such thing as “slam poetry” even though the term (along with “slam poet”) is widely accepted. A poetry slam is a competition. Maybe it’s more more useful to ask “What is the difference between spoken word | performance poetry | page poetry?” Spoken word and performance poetry are poems written first and foremost to be heard. They can focus on the aesthetics of word play, intonation, and voice inflection. It is a ‘catchall’ which includes any kind of poetry recited aloud, including hip hop, jazz poetry, traditional readings, and can include comedy routines and prose monologues.  If it’s not a competition, it is not a poetry slam. In a poetry slam, any original work is welcome, and much if not most of the work presented would be called spoken word or performance poetry. We think the distinction between writing “for the page or for the stage” is disparaging and unwelcome.

Open mic (during the Steel City Slam):

Artists signed up for the Open Mic on slam night will be able to present their art during breaks in the slam.  The Open Mic allows musicians, comedians, props, musical accompaniment, saxophones, whatever you can conceive of. Please inform our staff prior to your performance of any props | instruments | musical accompaniment you plan to use to ensure that we can best assist you.

We ask that Open Mic participants limit their performance to about five minutes depending on the number of participants. 

Steel City Slam generally runs between 7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. 

Feature Poets

If your spoken word travels are going to bring you through our fair city, we would love to talk with you about booking a feature!  Please fill out this contact form and we will get back to you!