The Pittsburgh Poetry Collective’s poetry slam league.

“What is a poetry slam?”  The Poetry Slam Poetry originated in 1986 at the Get Me High Lounge in Bucktown, Chicago. Slam Poetry is a rhetorical art where various individuals are giving an opportunity to present and perform original works of poetry to an audience. If you would like to perform at the Steel City Slam below will be listed some information that’ll inform you on our beliefs, expectations and rules regarding the Slam.  A poetry slam is a poetry competition staged as an interactive show.  It puts a dual emphasis on writing and performance, encouraging poets to focus on what they’re saying and how they’re saying it. Poets receive a score for their work from judges selected from the audience. Typically, the emcee or another organizer selects the judges, who give numerical scores based on the poets’ content and performance.

Steel City Slam takes place at 7:00PM the second Tuesday of the month at Poetry Lounge in Millvale. Check our events page for weekly zooms!

Steel City Slam:

The Sign-up list for the Steel City Slam and Steel City Slam Open Mic becomes available at 7:00 p.m. (1900 hours) at the venue where the slam is being held.

Rules:

Though rules vary from slam to slam, the basic rules are:

Each poem must be of the poet’s own original construction;

Each poet gets a set limit of time in minutes per round (plus a ten-second grace period) to read one poem.  The most common time limit is three minutes, and some slams have time limits of four, two, or one minute. Points are deducted for violating the time limit;

The poet may not use props, costumes, musical accompaniment, or musical instruments;

Scores are assessed on a zero to 10 scale with one decimal place.  Of the scores the poet receives from the five judges, the high and low scores are dropped and the middle three are added together, giving the poet a possible score of 0-30 points.  Judges will be selected at random prior to the show. Judges will be vetted to ensure that there is minimal bias.

SIGN UP 7pm

SHOW STARTS 7:30pm

21+