NPS Slam Tryouts

NPS National Slam Tryouts

Saturday, April 29th 4p-9p

at: The Meadowlark

1624 South St, Lincoln, NE

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 has paid for the poet’s Registration/Berth. NPS will also provide a stipend to cover some or all the poet’s travel and hotel expenses. Fundraising efforts will determine the stipend amount.

National Slam Tryout Format

​Registration: Poets may register in advance here, or they may register on the day of the event. We will begin taking walk-ins at the event at 4:15p. The competition will start at 5p.

​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.