It’s time to dig up your best material for the Dead Poets Edition of Powell River Public Library’s Poetry Slam.
This is the library’s eighth annual poetry slam, a cutthroat competition where poets duke it out on stage for the honour of winning Slam Champ.
“Nobody is screaming for blood or anything,” said library teen services coordinator Sonia Zagwyn, “but poetry slam is a raucous poetry reading competition.”
Zagwyn took over running the slam in 2013, crafting the Slam Champ medallion into a marvelously barbaric confection of faux-fur and rhinestones.
“I raided my mother’s button box to make it,” she said. “Everyone seems to love it.”
Slam Champs inscribe their name on the back of the medallions, with past honours being given to victors Inger-Lise Burns and five-time champion Andrea Layne Black.
“I don’t know if the other poets get intimidated that I win,” said Black, “or annoyed.”
Black has won five out of the last eight slams, and come in second in the remaining three. Among her winning entries, a comical poem about a woman who believed she was a crazy, rabid horse.
“I have a performance background,” said Black, “so I think I know what people like.”
Entrants in this year’s competition are encouraged to pick two poems by “dead poets,” but author their third reading themselves.
“I am not saying what I’m doing, “ said Black. “The competition is all strategy, it’s a chess game.”
Despite the competition, what Black said she likes best is the community that has grown up around the slam.
“I’ve met a lot of poets because of the slam,” she said. “It’s a fun night and everyone is lovely and welcoming.”
Zagwyn said she’s pleased that everyone gets so excited about the slam, but cautions entrants to bring their A-game by memorizing their poems and keeping entries to within three minutes each.
“It’s rare to find a event in which teenagers and seniors share the same intensity of excitement,” she said. “Still Andrea Layne Black is the one to beat.”
The Dead Poet’s Edition Poetry Slam is a free event starting from at 6:30 pm, November 7, at Cranberry Community Hall. Interested readers can find out more by going to powellriverlibrary.ca/content/poetry-slam–4.
