All poetry performed must be original work created by the performing poet.
Poems have a 3 minute time limit, with a 10 second grace period.
after the grace period a penalty of .5 points for each 10 seconds over time
No costumes or props are allowed.
No musical accompaniment is allowed.
5 judges are chosen from the audience.
Judges score each poem from 0.0 to 10.0, high and low scores are dropped
and middle 3 scores are added together for a total maximum score of 30, before penalties.
There are three rounds of prepared poetry.
The forth and final round is an improv round where the top 2 poets draw a word
or phrase randomly from the 'hat' and compose and perform a new slam creation for the
judges to score.
Scores are cumulative, or added together, until the final round where the poet
scoring the highest score in that round wins the slam.