The Guelph Poetry Slam is a live and interactive poetry competition where poets strut their stuff on stage and poems are judged by randomly selected audience members. It’s all based on writing and presentation, and good ol’ gutt feelings. The Poetry Slam has two rounds and awards the winner with $100. Feature poet Winona Linn will be joining us all the way from Paris France, sharing a 25 minute set of amazing spoken word. Of course there will be a open stage for you to share without the pressure of scorecards. This edition is SPECIAL! We have decided to throw out all the usual rule associated with slam.
You can do covers
You can use props
Wear a costume
Bring your musical instruments
Colaborative work is encouraged
The only thing that stays the same is poems exceeding 3 mins & 10 secs will be deducted 0.5 points for every 10 seconds over time.

Cover is $10 /pwyc, $5 if you perform, and FREE if you have a birthaversary in the month of March!

BIO:

Winona Linn is a poet, visual artist, performer, teacher and spoken word artist. Originally from Kingston, Ontario, Linn made a name for herself in the thriving poetry community of Halifax, Nova Scotia while attending the University of King’s College. In only her second year at school, she slammed for and won a spot on the two-time champion Hali Slam team and competed on a national level at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word.

Linn was the 2011 poet laureate of the Federal Green Party of Canada, and wrote and performed poems on a variety of issues for the duration of the 2011 election. Her poem “Leave,” quickly gained popularity on Youtube and has been featured in articles on the CBC and CTV websites, as well as many other online news sources.

Linn’s most recent work, “The Truth About Rabbits,” was published in the spring of 2015 as a joint project between Thee Hellbox Press and Greyweathers Press. This was a joyful collaboration between Linn and two letterpress studios, and resulted in a limited-edition hand-bound rare book, with Linn’s poetry set one letter at a time by Hugh Barclay of Thee Hellbox Press, and interspersed with the evocative and charming wood engraving illustrations of Greyweathers Press’ Larry Thompson. Both of Linn’s books are available for sale on this site.

Currently, Linn lives in Paris, France. She is a regular writer and feature performer in the Paris literary and spoken word scenes, is the director of Paris Lit Up Slam Series, and is in the process of publishing her third book, a graphic novel.
GPS Notes

Judging and Scoring:
Anyone can sign-up to compete on the night of the poetry Slam starting when door open at 7.
There are two rounds of competition.
Five randomly selected audience members judge the poetry.
These judges will award each poet a score out of 10.
Judges should make their score choice based on performance of the piece, writing style, and topic.
The highest score and the lowest score is dropped. The other three scores are totaled to create a score out of 30 for each poet.
The top four poets from the first round of poetry advance to compete in the second round.
Each poet in the round will be awarded a score out of 30 for their second performance.
For these poets their first round score and second round score will be added together to create a score out of 60.
The poet with the highest score will be celebrated as the winning poet of the evening.

Rules:
THE ONLY RULE WE’LL BE KEEPING TRACK OFF IS THE 3 MINUTE WITH A 10 SECOND GRACE PERIOD

Creation of the Guelph Poetry Slam Team:
The Guelph Poetry Slam (GPS) team will be determined poetry slams from March 2016 – January 2017.
The February 2017 Poetry slam is finals night! It will determine the members of the GPS team.
The team will be composed of five members.
To qualify to compete in finals night you have to compete a minimum of three throughout and be one of the top ten poets with the highest average scores.
Each poetry slam the scores of competing poets will be posted on our website.