Highlights from The Individual World Poetry Slam 2014

Blueshift's Poetry Reader, Lydia Havens, writes:

I have been a competing slam poet for a year and a half now, and I love that I am continuing to learn new things about the community. Currently, I’m an intern for Spoken Futures, Inc., a non-profit in Southern Arizona that works at making literary and art endeavours more accessible for youth. When one of my mentors, Maya, mentioned that she’d be willing to bring a few staff members to Individual World Poetry Slam (iWPS) in Phoenix, I knew I’d do anything to make it possible for me to go.

A poetry slam is an event where writers have three minutes (and a 10 to 30 second grace period) to read or recite a poem. Their work is judged by five people in the audience on a scale of 0.0 to 10.0. Competitors are not allowed to use props or costumes, so that their performance focuses solely on the poem.

iWPS is one of three Poetry Slam, Inc. (PSi) events in the United States. This year, 72 poets competed, either representing their local venue (for example, Paulie Lipman represented the Denver Mercury Slam) or going as “storm poets”, who do not represent anybody but themselves. My friend Mickey Ran, who is also from Tucson, competed as a storm poet. Each poet is a part of two preliminary bouts; after those are over they are ranked from 1 to 72 (1 being the highest). The top 12 poets go to finals, and the poet who scores the highest at finals is crowned the iWPS Champion.

Though I was not able to compete due to my age, being part of the audiences of four preliminary bouts and the finals was an incredible experience. I wanted to list a few highlights from my first iWPS:

• Seeing my wonderful friend Mickey compete: I know how biased I may sound to make this number one, but I don’t care. Mickey Ran is one of the strongest people I know, and the bravery she put on those stages blew us all away. Mickey ranked 56th, and I am so, so proud of her. I am really hoping someone got a recording of the four poems she did, because each one was killer. I want the rest of the world to hear what she said at iWPS. Some of us may need it.

• Judging one of the preliminary bouts: I have always been on the “receiving” end of this part of the competition, so to be a part of that piece of the poetry slam was honestly a whole lot of fun. When you are a judge, you really have to pay attention to what the poet is saying. You have to think about how creative the piece is, as well as how well it was delivered. At this bout, I was really blown away by everybody, but particularly Hieu Nguyen (storm poet), RJ Walker (representing Voice Boxers in Salt Lake City, UT), Emilee Nimitz (representing Vancouver Poetry Slam), and Stephen Meads (storm poet).

• Getting poet autographs: Before I was in Phoenix, Maya and Mickey gave me a homework assignment: they had gotten me this really nice notebook, and they wanted to see if I could get as many autographs as possible from competing poets and iWPS staff. I ended up collecting a total of 45. Some of the poets wrote me haikus (RJ Walker wrote a super cool one about how much I like dragons), some wrote really nice notes (Desiree Dallagiacomo wrote that I was “the light”), and others just left super cool signatures (I aspire to have an autograph as awesome as Jesse Parent’s one day). This homework assignment was wonderful for me because not only did it give me an excuse to go up to people, say hi, and tell them how amazing they are, it really helped get rid of (some of) my timidness. Everyone in that book is amazingly kind, and while I only filled up about five pages of a notebook with 100, I’m treasuring it forever.

• Placing at the iWPS Nerd Slam: I learned that at almost every PSi event like iWPS there is a nerd slam. Poets, competing and non-competing, have the chance to read a poem about anything nerdy-- Star Wars, HP Lovecraft, computer programming. Before you read your poem, though, you have to answer a trivia question about your “nerd discipline”. My discipline was Game of Thrones, and luckily I got it right. My poem was about Fight Club, which one could argue is more “cult classic” than “nerdy”, but that poem ended up placing third! I won a figure of an Andorian from the original Star Trek. I have to admit now that I’m not really familiar with it, so I ended up giving it to my grandmother, who is a giant Trek-y.

• iWPS Finals: I’m sure you can imagine that finals is the biggest part of this event. Over 200 people gathered at the Marquee Theater in Tempe to watch the Top 12 compete for the title of iWPS 2014 Champion. As expected, everyone was absolutely amazing, but the title went to the phenomenal Porsha O., from Boston. Porsha is only the second woman ever to win iWPS, and the first woman of color. And she absolutely deserved it. Everything about her work is commanding and powerful, and I was so happy to meet her after she won. While Porsha took first, Danez Smith took second, Desiree Dallagiacomo took third, and Hanif Abdurraqib took fourth.

Like I said, iWPS was my first PSi event, and I’m actually really grateful that I was not a competing poet. The fact that I was able to observe something like iWPS before ever being able to compete feels incredibly beneficial. I learned so much about the bravery and power within this craft. I was able to see how this community comes together and offers one another support as they tackle incredibly tough topics.

Come 2016, I will be “of age” to compete at events such as iWPS. Right now, I really am planning on trying my best to register when the time comes.

iWPS concludes the line-up of PSi events for 2014. The year 2015 will bring Women of the World Poetry Slam in Albuquerque, New Mexico; National Poetry Slam in Oakland, California; and Individual World Poetry Slam, this time in Washington, DC. If you are near any of this, I encourage you to buy an All Events Pass and check it out. It is well worth it.

To see the ranks of iWPS, 2014, go to scores.poetryslam.com Check out Button Poetry on YouTube: they’ll be uploading HD videos from iWPS!

#slampoetry #events