National Poetry Slam

an annual drunken orgy of poets

er...oops...you're not supposed to know that...
The Superbowl of Poetry. A national competition for performance poets. Cities send a team consisting of their four best poets. Winners get big money and lots of gigs for a year. All participants get to see how much better (or worse)they are than all of the other poets because their cumulative scores are publicly posted.

Collection of spazes from all across the States ( + Canada, as an afterthought) to gauge which city produces the most spazmodic people, singularly and en masse.

Not neccesarily a locus of lyric dominance, but the performers do show some spunk and emotion, which are typically quite tough to extract from a poet.

If you buy a chapbook from any of these people, you risk discovering the disappointment that a presence may not translate to print.