The spoken word movement has made its way to the University of Northern Iowa’s campus. A poetry slam in the Center for Multicultural Arts on Friday, Sept. 11th showcased both local poets and the art of performance poetry. An open mic was also available all night, allowing students and community members alike to share poems of their own creation and established authors.

A poetry slam isn’t even close to what one usually associates with poetry. They don’t have to be held in a dimly lit café, stuffed with literary snobs in black turtleneck sweaters, snapping to poems read with bongo drum accents and the feeling that every sentence ends in a question mark. Though stemming from such a scene, a slam prides itself on breaking conventions. For example, instead of quietly listening to a poem as its being read, it is encouraged, applauded even, for audience members to interact with the poet. Cheers and sneers can come flying from the mouths of riled up crowd.

The book Poetry Slam: The Competitive Art of Performance Poetry describes the traditional rules and history of poetry slams. Poetry slams are simply poetry competitions. While this might seem weird to some, poetry competitions have ties to the first Olympic games, where the best writers from all over Greece would perform poems right alongside athletes and were held in the same esteem.

Today, poetry slams are a little less formal, to say the least. They usually consist of three timed rounds of three minutes each. Poets who have signed up to compete take their turn performing an original poem. Five judges are selected from the audience before the slam to serve as the caliber and final say as to the quality of the poem. Following each piece, the judges in the crowd rate the poem on a scale of 1 to 10, allowing the use of one decimal point. The scores are recorded, and the highest and lowest scores are dropped, making each poem worth up to 30 points.

Judges beware: judging comes with risks. If audience members don’t agree with a score, they will ruthlessly boo the decision!

Friday’s event kept true to the conventions of a poetry slam, though there were slight differences. Only three judges were selected from crowd and were told to rate poems on a 6-10 scales, with no decimal points allowed.

The poetry slam was hosted by two members of the Cedar Valley poetry troupe, Voices in Poetry. The ladies started the competition off by explaining the rules of a poetry slam, laying out the logistics of the night’s proceedings, promoting upcoming events from Voices in Poetry and the CME, and performing a poem themselves. The mic was then opened up to competition and creativity.

At the end of the event, the audience had loosened up and embraced art of a poetry slam. Audience members and competitors alike were flooding the microphone for their chance to share a bit of poetry. Even the Center of Multicultural Education’s director, Dr. Michael Blackwell, performed a poem he wrote, to the hoops and hollers of his listeners.

Small prizes were handed out to the winners of the slam. Door prizes were also given to audience members, as well as CD mixtapes made by one of the performers.

In the air of the poetry slam, the founding phrase kept true. The environment was positive and supportive of artistic creation beyond the competition. It was as Allan Wolf said, one of the original founders of the poetry slam, “The points.. (were) not the point, the point… (was) poetry.”