Actually, let’s start with what a poetry slam is NOT: 

v     It is NOT a poetry reading

v     It is NOT an open mic

v     It is NOT a boxing match

v     It is NOT the poetry you remember from high school

v     It is NOT a support group 

A poetry slam is a performance competition, similar to an Olympic sports event.  Poets sign up to compete and judges are randomly chosen from the audience to score.  They base their scores on both content and presentation. 

A poetry slam is a way to make poetry fun and exciting for all kinds of folks, to make poetry come alive on the stage, to make people stand up and take notice.  The typical poetry of a slam deals with real stories and issues, emotion and drama, controversial ideas and contemporary topics, ideas that are accessible to every walk of life (as Marc Smith puts it). 

Typically, a slam is noisy.  The audience cheers when they like your work and boo the judges when their scores are too low.  The poets are there to entertain, to invite the audience to have a good time, to encourage them to participate. 

Many people ask how a number or score can be put on a poem, how there can be a competitive aspect applied to poetry.  Professional writers and artists everywhere compete to some extent, whether on an editor’s desk or on a gallery wall, in a poetry contest or a music contract.  The concept of the poetry slam has always been to seek a wider audience to listen to poetry.