Yep, it’s true; Guelph Spoken Word is turning 7! Every year we make it is a testament to hard work, dedication, community and love of SPOKEN WORD, WRITTEN WORDS… ALL THE WORDS, SO SPREAD THE WORD.
To celebrate this milestone we will be having a few things during the month of November, including our monthly slam that started it all. 10 spoken word artists slam for their chance to win $100 and and qualify for an invitation to compete to be a member of the upcoming year’s poetry slam team, there’ll be open stage, treats and Prizes and snacks provided by the Ebarl

As our gift to you for help us raise voices since 2008 cover is FREE… for everyone!

Rules of slam are simple:
No Props
No costumes
No Musical Accompaniment
Each poet has 3 minutes
Original material only

Our feature’s bio:
Siaara Freeman was born and raised in Cleveland Ohio. She’s very proud of this even when others assume she’d feel otherwise. She began writing at 7 years old and actively slamming at 15 for the National Brave New Voices Competition until she was 19. She then entered the adult scene slamming for both Columbus and Cleveland Ohio. Siaara’s poems offers an actual face to the urban experience instead of a caricature. Siaara insists that you see the people she sees, the stories she knows, whether you find them respectable or not. She has traveled the country and she does not make fans she makes friends.

She met Maya Angelo and has a selfie for proof. She has been grandslam champ in both city’s she slammed for. She’s never done an individual competetion , but she’d like to. Her team made it to final stage their first year at BNV in 2008, which was pretty lit. Enough about slam doe:
“Siaara is attempting to grow her afro so tall, God mistakes it for a microphone and decides to speak into her”

How a slam works:
There will be 5 randomly selected judges giving scores from 0-10.
Judges will consider content and performance.
Highest and lowest scores will be dropped and the middle scores will be added for the highest possible score out of 30
Top four slammers will move on to a second round.
Poet with the highest score out of 60 will be considered this months champion

Things to consider:
Collaboration is encouraged.
Each prop, costume and musical accompaniment violation come with a 2.0 point deduction
Each poet will receive a 10 second grace period, after which 0.5 points will be deducted for every part of 10 seconds they go over.

All Guelph Spoken Word events are consider consent positive spaces; we ask that all person receive explicit consent before physically engaging another.
Also language and content of GSW events can sometime be intense and triggering, while GPS is an all ages event and we do most often have an active listen on hand, listener discretion is advised.
Unfortunately our venue for GPS is not wheelchair accessible