The Slam Spiel

What follows is the official "Emcee Spiel" that will be used at Nationals. Feel free to take it and adapt it to your local slams (you'll have to tweak it a little as it is written to introduce a team competition).

This is a poetry slam & this is the official "Emcee Spiel"

Each poet will have three minutes to perform one poem of their own construction. No props, costumes, or musical accompaniment are allowed. Each poem will be scored by our panel of five judges which have been chosen from the audience. We'll drop the high and low scores. Each poet's individual score will be added to the cumulative total for the team that poet represents, as this is a TEAM competition. We'll keep a running total and let you know how it turns out.

JUDGES: You will score each poem on a scale of 0.0 - 10.0, considering both content and performance, so 10.0 would be an earth shattering text performed perfectly, and 0.0 would be the worst poem you could imagine performed by someone who shouldn't quit their day job. We encourage you to use decimals, as this helps avoid ties (use no more than two decimal places only, please.) And, we IMPLORE you to remain consistent with yourself. Give the poem the score that YOU think it deserves -- don't be influenced by the audience or the other judges.

Some final notes:

1. Poets must check their ego at the door.

2. Some of the performances you will see tonight may involve multiple members of the same team. This is perfectly legal.

3. Audience -- give your attention to the poets while they are performing. They have traveled a long way to be here for you tonight.

4. Audience -- after the poem is finished, we encourage you to respond to the poets OR the judges in any way you think is appropriate.

5. Above all else, EVERYBODY HAVE FUN!!!