Kari O’Connor

Cactus

Kingsnoise

A.J. Moyer

R.J. Reynolds

Tiegen Kosiak

Nathan Say

Calamity J

Lauren Williamson

Come see these 9 in a ruthless (but truth-filled) competition for the 5 slots on the 2012 Las Vegas Slam Team! Donations of at least $5 are asked of all who are able, and concessions will be available with proceeds going to help fund the team’s journey to regional and national competition.

But then again, there’s no reason to be sad, because we still have semi-finals, 2012 Grand Slam, and a summer full of wild fundraisers, bigger and badder theme slams, and all kinds of special events throughout the whole Las Vegas poetry community! And all that bad ish starts right here, with SEMI-FINALS FEATURING SIERRA DEMULDER ON APRIL 5!!!

Sierra DeMulder is a two-time National Poetry Slam Champion and the author New Shoes on a Dead Horse (Write Bloody 2012) and The Bones Below (Write Bloody 2010). She has been a finalist at both the Individual World Poetry Slam and the Women of the World Poetry Slam and coached the winning team at College Union Poetry Slam Invitational 2011. Sierra has featured in hundreds of venues across the country, performing her poetry and facilitating writing workshops in high schools, colleges, homeless shelters, prisons, and people’s basements.

She IS lyrical tai chi. But that’s not the whole jive, ’cause along with her, you get FOURTEEN poets who placed top 3 in our qualifiers duking it out to see which TEN advance to the Grand Slam. They are:

Calamity J
RJ Reynolds
AJ Moyer
Raudel Torres
Coffee Brown
Kasey Bean
Cactus
Kari O’Connor
Roxy Feathers
Lauren Williamson
Tiegen Kosiak
Kingsnoise
Paradigm
Nathan Say

If last year’s semi-final is any indication, you’re gonna need insurance on your clothes, ’cause veins will be opened, hearts will be thrown on tables, and fear will be just another streetlight in these poets’ rear view mirrors. Don’t miss all this madness and metaphor, April 5th at Yayo Taco, 7:00 P.M.

One week from today – Feb. 16!
Las Vegas Slam is bringing you a feature from Christian Drake at the show he originated as part of the National Poetry Slam – The Masquerade Slam! That means all PERSONA POEMS. Maybe you’ll hear a poem from a redwood, or maybe the pope’s throne, or some cartoon characters, or characters from novels. It’s all fair game AS LONG AS THE POETS DON’T READ AS THEMSELVES.

Come check it out and support Las Vegas Slam! The event is free and all ages, but donations are accepted and booze is available (in case you have some liquid courage needs to fulfill). PLUS some of the best tacos and burritos in Vegas.

Haiku Deathmatch was a success! Even with only 6 competitors (and as a result, some confused bracketing) everyone present was treated to a crazy night of some hilarious and insightful haiku. There were some great matchups, and Breon Jenay took the championship knocking out her competitors at a dizzying rate. Expect these to be happening again in the future, so don’t hesitate to start prepping your seventeen syllable sweetnesses for the next slaughter!

Look out, and prep for, our next theme slam on February 16 – The Masquerade Slam featuring Christian Drake! This will feature traditional slam scoring, and all pieces performed must be PERSONA POEMS! That means every poem is the performer writing (and performing) as someone or something else.

It’s the first slam of the new year!
Shake those post-holiday blues with a night of verbal venom and valor at the one and only Yayo Taco featuring Salt Lake City’s Jesse Parent!

Workshop at 4:30P (Hosted by Jesse Parent)
Open sign-ups start at 6:30P
Slam starts at 7:00P
Free entry + food and drink specials from Yayo Taco!
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ABOUT THE FEATURE:
Jesse Parent is a poet, an improviser, a former mixed martial arts fighter, a computer nerd, a husband, a father, and, above all, a human being. According to the results of the 2010 and 2011 Individual World Poetry Slams, he is also the 2nd ranked slam poet in the world.

Jesse entered the world of performance poetry in December 2006 after touring for a few years with the poetry/music/improv show he created called The Hook. He placed 2nd at both the 2010 and 2011 Individual World Poetry Slams and was part of the 8th place Salt City Slam team at the 2011 National Poetry Slam. He has been on the 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 Salt City Slam teams, was the coach of the 2007, 2008 and 2010 Salt City Slam teams, was the Salt Lake City grand champion in 2008, 2010, and 2011, and is the current slammaster of Salt City Slam. He also has sat on the executive council for Poetry Slam, Inc., the national body behind the National Poetry Slam, Individual World Poetry Slam, and Women of the World Poetry Slam.

In his professional life, Jesse is a software engineering manager at a company that provides products and services that help the deaf and hearing to communicate. In his personal life, he has a very tolerant wife and three adorable kids.

It’s time, folks. We’re starting up monthly theme slams, and the first in the series is the Secret Santa Slam.

For the first round, we’ll have each poet “gifting” a poem to their assigned Secret Santas, then doing a send up of that poet in the second round! With people planning some costumes and some wrench-in-the-spokes poetry presents, it’s sure to be an entertaining night. Sick of all the hum drum super serious poetry? THIS IS YOUR NIGHT.

The sign-up list is already decided, and here are the participating names:
RJ Reynolds
The A-Brain
Kari O’Connor
AJ Moyer
Katie Shipp
Jorge Lara
Mick Axelrod
Calamity J
Michael Vanozzi
Cactus
Brittany Viesca

Don’t miss out on some of the wild and wacky pairings we have! They’re sure to lead to some interesting send-ups and some treacherous “gifts.”

Start off the end of 2011 with the Las Vegas Slam! (Please read the end note in this section for special details about a bonus slam to be held Dec. 15)

If’n you don’t know the drill for a slam, here’s the rundown:
- Poets sign up to compete for 2 rounds (which means 2 poems)
- We pick 5 judges from the audience
- Poets have 3 minutes to perform their pieces w/ a ten-second grace period before they start to lose points
- Poets may not use work by another writer, and may not use any props or musical accompaniment that isn’t created by their own body
- Top 3 scores of the night qualify for the postseason to compete for a space on the 2012 Las Vegas Slam Team going to National Poetry Slam in Charlotte, NC!

We don’t have a feature this month, but that’s not going to stop us from bringing some extra specialness to the show. We will still be holding our 2-hour pre-slam workshop starting at 4:30PM at Yayo Taco.

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Also, we will be holding a special extra slam on Dec. 15 to meet certification requirements for Poetry Slam, Inc. (the fine folks who run National Poetry Slam, Individual World Poetry Slam, and Women of the World Poetry Slam annually).
To make this bonus slam EXTRA special, we’ve decided to throw in a fun twist, so it’s going to be…. THE FIRST EVER SECRET SANTA SLAM!!!
All sign-ups for the Dec. 15th event will be PRE-ARRANGED. If you would like to sign up for Dec. 15th, please either make it known here on this event page in a comment, with a message to our slammaster A.J. Moyer, or by signing up at the Dec. 1st slam.
Between rounds on Dec. 1st, we will put the names of everyone signed up into a hat and draw to assign our Secret Santas. Whoever’s name you draw, you get to “Gift” that person a poem to be performed at the Dec. 15 Secret Santa Slam! For the second round of Secret Santa, your goal is to EMULATE YOUR SECRET SANTA!

So, for an example, let’s say AJ draws Calamity J’s name. He gets to assign Calamity J a poem to perform, let’s say Beau Sia’s “Horse Cock Manifesto,” and then for round two, AJ has to perform something as close to Calamity J’s style as possible, or even cover one of her poems!
This balances out a little of the disadvantage of surprise poems in round one and should be a ton of fun! This event will NOT count toward qualifications, but we still hope to see a ton of people out for a heckuva kickoff to the holidays!

It seems like every month we have new blood come through and tear the roof off. Will it be YOU this month?

If you’ve never been to a poetry slam, it goes like this:
- We have 2 rounds, so all poets must be ready with 2 poems to perform.
- Five judges will be selected from the audience to score all the poems.
- All poems must be of the performer’s own original composition.
- Poems must come in under 3 minutes and ten seconds, or points will be deducted.
- No props are allowed, and no musical accompaniment that the performer can’t make with his/her own body.

And that’s it! Sign-ups are open to the public starting at 6:30P, and there’s NO CHARGE to come watch or sign up to compete, which means more money in your pocket to buy merch from our touring feature or to fill yourself up on the wonderful food and libations available from our host venue, Yayo Taco!

DON’T THINK YOU’RE READY TO SLAM YET?
That’s cool! We’ve got a FREE TWO-HOUR WORKSHOP run by our feature, John Survivor Blake, where he’ll put his wealth of knowledge and experience in the slam scene on display to help you and everyone else hone their stage and page skills to become better slam poets!

This month’s feature is John Survivor Blake, a multiple time National Poetry Slam and Individual World Poetry Slam competitor. He’s toured all over the nation teaching and performing, and now he’s coming here to Vegas to give us one hell of a show! Survivor will have 6 books available, so make sure to bring some extra money to support the touring poet and take home some great merch!
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You see them every day; addicts, homeless and hopeless, asking for change, seemingly stuck in a deadly cycle. We all are small degrees of separation from someone in this circumstance. This is the story of one man and his fight against the drown, back to the surface. John “Survivor” Blake will tell you he simply loves poetry; what happens when one speaks and another listens with little effort. He will not brag about what he has overcome. Instead, he confesses that he loves when the almost-quit realize this will get better, realize this because John Survivor Blake is still here, but he will say “If it wasn’t me, it would have been someone else”. We know better.
John Survivor Blake will claim to be “fortunate” as opposed to being successful; addicted to heroin and alcohol, endured poverty in the Baruch Housing Projects on the lower east side of Manhattan, stretched but never snapped at the hands of chemically addicted parents. Survivor believes his biracial experiences have enabled him to understand two sides of a cultural sword. He will say that spending his adolescence visiting his mother in prison was divine intervention. He will tell you that burying his father from AIDS has taught him how to forgive. John Survivor Blake has beaten more than odds.
Now, a recovering addict and alcoholic, he has managed to escape what took the lives of his entire family, and has now been published in Naugatuck River Review Journal of Narrative Poetry, BeyondRaceMag, InTheFray Mag, PenIt Mag, Urban Weekly, and Adobe Walls. He’s also shared performance stages with Saul Williams, Tara Hardy, Amiri Baraka, Suheir Hammad, Tara Betts, and many, many others. He’s toured the United States; over 100 cities, facilitated writing and performance workshops as well as lectured at many universities: Columbia, Drury, Westchester Community, Virginia Tech and more.
He’s done this because he believes poetry saved his life and he is simply making said life one gigantic Thank You card. John has facilitated workshops for youth organizations and festivals as well as classrooms nationwide. This is what he lives for.

After facilitating writing and performance workshops, coaching both youth and adult poetry slam teams for the Slam Richmond Reading Series in Virginia for four years, John is still instructing poetry for young writers, now at Warehouse508 in Albuquerque, and outreach through writing at Santa Fe’s Juvenile Detention Center.
John Survivor Blake is not concerned with where he’s been, but where all of us are going!