Texas Tea Regional Poetry Slam

Houston VIP Slam and Rudyard’s present the Texas Tea Regional Poetry Slam, Sunday, July 24.

The Houston VIP Poetry Slam monthly slam allows 12 poets to compete for a spot on the Houston VIP National Poetry Slam Team. The top 12 ranking poets at the end of the slam season (August-March) will compete in the Grand Slam. The top 5 placed poems in the Grand Slam will move on to represent Houston at the National Poetry Slam in Oakland, CA in August 2014.

Our rules are fairly simple:

All poems need to be under the 3:10 min time limit. Your time starts the moment you engage the audience in word or action.

No props, costumes, or animal acts.

There is no repeating poems during the slam season, with the exception of the Grand Slam and specialty slams (IE: You can repeat Slam, WOWips & IWPS Qualifier Slams). If you repeat a poem in a prohibited slam, you will receive a score of a zero for that poem.

You must sign off on your poems at the end of the slam to verify name of your poem and score.

Slam spots are first come first serve and cannot be held for you if you are not at the venue in time.

Houston VIP Poetry Slam (Houston, TX)
http://www.houstonvipslam.com/

The Houston VIP Poetry Slam team was founded in 2009 as the H-Town Slam Team by Marcell Murphy, Deborah “D.E.E.P.” Mouton, Seth Walker and Vincent “Black Blues” Johnson.

In 2011, our name was changed to the Houston VIP Slam Team and we became a program of Expressions-EWCOC. It’s mission includes creating community where writers can come to create, practice, and sharpen their skills for the page and the stage.

Through the medium of slam poetry, we are able to bring literacy to the forefront. Our blend of writing an theatrics cause for an engaging and entertaining take on life, and offers our writers the chance to “spit” about their issues and experiences that concern them and their communities.

In 2013, The Houston VIP Poetry Slam was ranked #2 in the nation’s best group performers. In 2014, Houston VIp were semi-finalists in the National Poetry Slam and ranked as the best poetry slam team in the state of Texas!

To further our mission, we offer monthly writing workshops, as well as, a monthly slam poetry competition. Our competitions are judged by 5 random audience members. Those 12 poets who favor the best with our audience over our slam season will compete in our Grand Slam at the end of March. The best 5 will make the National team to represent Houston at the National Poetry Slam Competition for the year.

By blending a healthy competition with immediate audience feedback, writers in our community grow leaps and bounds and are able to find a voice here, where they may have never found one before.

Don’t believe us, just stop by a slam and be amazed!