Ann Arbor Poetry Slam

The National Poetry Slam was last week and I have barely begun to recover from the great poetry. Ann Arbor made the Semi-finals for the first time since 2000! There are not enough exclamation points available for how cool that is.

Our intrepid poets faced off against some of the toughest teams around in their semi-final, including the home team Austin, and the team that would win the whole thing, Slam Charlotte.

Mike, Matt, Karyna, and Logic performed wonderfully the entire week. In a few weeks you will have the opportunity to see them yourself, when they feature at the Heidelberg on the first Tuesday in September. With any luck, I’ll be able to get one or more of them to write up their adventures in Austin for you.

Tuesday August 7 is the Ann Arbor Poetry Slam!  There will be no feature, which leaves more time for you to read!  As always we will have an open mic, and the world famous Poetry Slam.  August is a standard qualifier.

Please wish our intrepid team of poets luck as they compete next week in the National Poetry Slam in Austin, Texas!

Check out this sweet article in the Austin Chronicle, which features Ann Arbor’s own Karyna McGlynn
(OK she’s really from Austin, but she’s competing for us this year!), clicky clicky!

The Ann Arbor Poetry Slam is going down on Tuesday! Don’t miss the show.

The feature will be the incredible Corbet Dean. Check out his bio from CorbetDean.com

On the evening of May 23, 1994, three policemen were shot by a single gunman in Southwest Phoenix. One of the injured officers waited several years to process his thoughts and emotions about that critical incident.

In 2000, Corbet Dean shared his experience at the Spoken Word Festival in Tempe, AZ. After performing poetry about the confrontation, Corbet was praised: Gary Mex Glazner mentioned his work in a festival review for About.com. Later that year, The Mesa Tribune quoted the poem in an feature article on poetry in Arizona. Eventually, Corbet’s work appeared in Off the Cuffs, an unforgettable anthology published by Soft Skull Press.

read more…

Corbet is a powerful and moving performer. Don’t miss the chance to see this poet, who knows when I can get him back in!

The Ann Arbor Poetry Slam is going down on Tuesday! Don’t miss the show.

The feature will be Ann Arbor’s own Jeff Kass. Jeff, who is a former Ann Arbor Poetry Slam Champ, is also well known for his work as a promoter of youth poetry through his work at The Neutral Zone.

There will be an open mike session and our regular slams resume for those interested in qualifying for the Ann Arbor and National Slam Championships in 2008.

The competition was fierce on Tuesday at the Grand Slam. When the dust cleared, only one tenth of a point separated those who made the team from those who didn’t. I am proud to announce the members of the 2007 A2Slam team: tied for third, Karynna McGlynn and Matt Ernst; in second place, Mike Moriarity; and the champion once again, Logic.