Topics

16

General Discussion / Rustbelt Poetry Slam coming to Toronto, May 28 - 31

« on: February 26, 2009, 06:09:44 PM »

FYI...

The 2009 Rust Belt Regional Poetry Slam will be hosted in Toronto, Ontario from May 28-31.

This year, the tournament is limited to 12 teams and 6 Indie competitors who will compete in two rounds of 6x3 (3 slots for 6 teams). The poets with the highest rankings will move on to the Saturday Night Finals to battle it out for the top honours.

Registration has been open for a few months.

The 2009 Rust Belt Regional Poetry Slam is produced with the support of The T-Dot Slam Fam, Toronto Poetry Project and Up From The Roots, as well as the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council.

For further information, e-mail info@rustbelttoronto.com or check out http://www.rustbelttoronto.com/

Look forward to seeing some of ya in TO... We got a great poetry scene here and many Torontonians are hungry to see what else is out there. Come out and visit your friendly neighbour to the north!

17

General Discussion / Looking for pro-Obama anti-Bush poems to cover...in Canada!

« on: January 02, 2009, 03:45:12 PM »

Dave here from Toronto Poetry Slam.
So in Toronto, we're organizing a Jan. 19 event called BYE BYE BUSH, a show featuring poetry n' music celebrating Obama's presidency and Bush's long-awaited departure. I know, what's Canada doing celebrating a US event? Well this is a global event, in my opinion, and we think Toronto would love this kind of poetry show.

I'm lookin to do a cover poem that night. A piece celebrating Obama or critiquing Bush (intelligently!), and all style are welcome. Want to also let our audience know about the amazing talent south of the border, which is why I'm bugging you at PSI instead of my fellow Canucks at SPOCAN.

Please email poems (text or video links) to info@torontopoetryslam.com

We promise to mention the author and any website you got, for more info.

Thanks.

18

General Discussion / Finally, a social network for spoken word artists

« on: June 28, 2008, 11:40:59 AM »

I know everyone is frustrated with Facebook/MySpace chaos, but wouldn't it be nice to finally have a social network just for spoken word peots?

My friend Jess got one going and I encourage you all to join. It's free and easy to use.

Find it at
http://wespeak.ning.com/

Could be a great way to connect with other artists and get discussions going with poets all over the world

p.s. There's a strong Canadian presence on the site cuz Jess (although she's American) came through Toronto and Ottawa a lot to hang with our slam crews here

19

General Discussion / Slam order draw question

« on: March 05, 2008, 12:52:56 PM »

Dave here from Toronto Poetry Slam.

So for our semi-finals, for the 12 finalists, poets perform based on a draw that determines their order for the first round. 1 through 12. Then in the second and final round, the order is reversed from 12 to 1 (with a sacrifice between rounds). I'm wondering whether this is a recommended method or if you would suggest going random in the second round too, so that #12 spot is screwed over by going last in the first round and then first in the second round. Then again, them da breaks, right?

Do you think this structure is unfair?

btw, the scores are cumulative in the semi-finals. The top 8 poets move to the Finals, where the draw order is determined in the same way.

20

General Discussion / Hello from Toronto

« on: February 10, 2007, 05:48:02 PM »

Yo SlamMasters et al

I run the Toronto Poetry Slam in Canada, and just want to introduce myself and let you guys know how we rock it in Canuckland.
TPS has been going on for 16 months, we just sent our first poet to IWPS (she placed 27th, holler!), the Slam sends a regular team to our version of the NPS, the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, and the audience numbers are mind-blowing.

If you want to check out what we do, hit up www.torontopoetryslam.com
I'm always looking for advice, feature suggestions, etc., so throw em my way whenever you want.

Was a pleasure seeing some of you in Vancouver, I'm still recovering, still gotta get a poem out of me from that week.