Slam City! started off at the Blue Milk Paradigm Space on November 3rd. It was quite simply a phenomenal event. Hosted by the incredibly energetic and enthusiastic Ayodele (1999 Southeastern Regional Poetry Slam Champion) this slam featured some of the finest spoken word poets in Atlanta.

For those not in the know, a Poetry Slam is a spoken word competition where poets are scored (0-10) by 5 audience judges. The evening begins with 12 poets who present their work to the audience and are immediately graded. The top 6 poets advance to the second round and perform a second original piece. In the third round the top 3 poets vie for the first and second places and an invitation to compete in April for a position on the Atlanta Slam Team 2000! (the winner also receives $25).

In addition to the incredible local talent that showed up to compete, Ayodele was also able to present to us the 1996 National Slam Individual Champion, Patricia Johnson. To say Patricia was wonderful would be an vast understatement. She quite literally moved the audience to tears with her poem "In a place where," which speaks of the burning and decapitation of her cousin in 1997. She then drew the laughter from their lips when she had 4 audience volunteers help her with her poem "I'm a Man." When Patricia Johnson comes back to Atlanta you must go see her.

After Patricia's reading the evening concluded with the final round of the Poetry Slam. The 3 finalists were Brother Spinxx, Karen Wurl and Mr. Boom! Spinxx gave us a moving poem about societal issues (my favorite line was, "Our problems, simply put...too many indians, not enough chiefs.") Karen then presented us with her poem about growing up Methodist in a Catholic town, "Grace is the weight of the world." Keeping with the unplanned theme, Mr. Boom! then performed his piece on eye-gouging, "Trend."

It was no surprise to anyone present that the scores of the winner and runner-up were only different by 2 tenths of a point. Karen Wurl just managed to edge out Brother Spinxx with a score of 28.4.

Slam City! is held at the Blue Milk Paradigm Space (located on Spring St. between 10th and 14th Sts.) on the first Thursday of the month. It is hosted by Ayodele who can be reached by email at: Mars1974@aol.com. It is open to everyone (in fact, you are all personally invited), but there is a $3 entry fee to compete in the slam. The next Poetry Slam 2000! will be held on December 4 at 8pm and will feature the 3-time National Poetry Slam Semifinalist Daniel Roop of Knoxville, TN.

Daniel Roop started slamming in Knoxville in '96. In the past 4 years, he has been a 3-time Individual Finalist at the Southern Fried Regional Poetry Slam, the winner of the 1st Annual Arkansas Grand Slam (judged by Gary Snyder), and the only poet in the country to place in the top 10 at Nationals every year for the past 3 years ('97-'99). He has been published in Poetry Nation, Will Work For Peace: New '90's Political Poetry, Omnivore, and the Memphis Poetry 40 oz.