All poetic styles and voices are welcome! You could perform a sonnet, a rap, a rant, a monologue – you can even do a group piece with multiple poets onstage at once. The regular poetry slam rules apply, that means, no music, no props, no costumes, just you and a microphone for up to three minutes. Then five randomly-selected judges will hold up scores from zero to ten. The high and low scores are dropped and your poem receives a number out of thirty. If you go longer than three minutes, points are deducted. Each team will be composed of four poets (and an alternate).
The registration deadline for Hullabaloo 2012 has passed; however, we are still accepting schools for the waiting list. To sign up: send an email to wordplaypoets@gmail.com that includes the name of your school, its address, and a telephone contact for your team (preferably a teacher or coach's mobile phone). You do not need to pay the registration fee to get on the waiting list.
Each bout will be composed of five rounds. Four rounds of solo poems (no group pieces allowed) where each of team members perform. Then there will be a group piece round in which each team must perform a poem with at least two voices (up to four voices). After five rounds, the teams are ranked according to their cumulative scores (the highest possible score would be 150).
Organizers
RC Weslowski is the founder and organizer of the Vancouver Youth Poetry Slam, which happens on the 4th Monday of every month at Café Deux Soleils (2096 Commercial Dr). He also helps run the quarterly show, Mashed Poetics, which mixes spoken word and classic rock and was the Artistic Director of the 2005 Canadian Festival of Spoken Word. A surrealist heart beats hard and large inside of him and in 2008 RC Weslowski was named the male Poet of Honour at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word.
Chris Gilpin has been a workshop leader for the WordPlay, Poetry in Schools program since 2006 and became WordPlay's Program Coordinator in 2009. Chris is also the 2011 Vancouver Individual Poetry Slam Champion, a two-time Vancouver Poetry Slam Team member, the 2008 Haiku Deathmatch Champion, winner of the Vancouver 2009 CBC Poetry Face-off, and finalist in the 2010 Write Bloody manuscript competition.
