National Slam Qualifying Event

National Slam Qualifying Event 

Saturday, March 16th 3p-9p

At the Nebraska Poetry Society (NPS) Slam Tryouts, the winning poet is selected to represent Nebraska at the BlackBerry Peach National Slam Poetry Competition.​

NPS will cover the poet’s Registration & meals and help the poet fundraise to cover the cost of flight and hotel at the event. 

National Slam Qualifying Event Format

​Registration: Poets may register in advance here, or they may register on the day of the event. Registrations are from 3:00-3:30p. The competition will start at 4p.

​Fees: There is no fee to participate. We are asking for donations from the audience and those attending. All donations will be used to cover the expenses for the winning poet at the BlackBerry Peach National Slam Poetry Competition.

​Time Limit: All poems in the competition have a 3-minute time limit. The grace period for Prelims is 10 seconds. The grace period for Finals is 20 seconds.

​Judging: Judges will score each poem on a scale of 1 to 10, utilizing one decimal place to give further nuance to the scores.

Poems cannot be repeated in any round, including any tie-breaking rounds.

​Poems: The poems must be written by the poet without any AI assistance. Vulgar or offensive language of any sort will not be accepted.

​Order: The order in the first round will be chosen by random draw. The order in the second round will be determined by the first-round scores, in order of highest score to lowest. If there is a large turnout, and we do not have time for all poets to compete in the second round, the poets with the lowest scores will not move on to the second round.

​Scoring: After the two rounds, all scores are added together. The highest cumulative score shall be given a ranking of 1. The next highest will earn a ranking of 2, and so on, with the lowest cumulative score awarded a ranking of 10.

​Eliminations: The highest-ranked poets (those with the lowest numbers) will advance to the final round. The highest-ranked poet, not moving on to the final round, will serve as the sacrificial poet to begin the final round.

​Ties: Ties in any round, including the final round, are solved by adding scores from all judges and all rounds. If there is still a tie, a tie-breaking round will be held.

​Prize: The highest-scoring poet in the final round wins and is given a paid trip (full or partial, depending on fundraising results) to the BlackBerry Peach National Slam Poetry Competition.