This Saturday’s Throw Slam Finals will be more fun than a keg full of Fringe Festivals!

This Saturday June 21st 8pm at Le Cagibi: Throw Slam FINALS!

We’ll have not one, as is our habit, but TWO amazing spoken word artists featuring! That’s Moe Clark of Calgary, and Spencer Butt of Toronto.

We’ll also have the top scoring poets from this year’s inaugural Throw Slam season competing for bragging rights (and a top secret trophy!) and a spot on the team that will represent Montreal at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word in Calgary this Fall.

This will be the first time (as far as I know) that Montreal will have sent a team! So you know you gotta get out to the slam and help decide who goes home the winner!

For those who don’t know just what a slam is, here’s a brief rundown: At the start of the night, poets sign to perform, or slam, their poem and judges are selected at random from members of the audience. Poets have 3 minutes onstage with no props or costumes. After their poem, the judges hold up their scores (out of 10). The highest scores advance to the second round, and the highest scorer in the second round is the winner for the night.

Many people are often conflicted about the notion of “scoring” poetry. Here’s my take on it: As one of the motto’s of poetry slamming goes, “The points are not the point. The poetry is the point”. The points to me are really just a hook to get people who wouldn’t normally go to a spoken word event to be interested. Also, as a performer, I like to use the competitive aspect of it to motivate me to write better, performer harder than I might otherwise. But in the end, I’m not really attached to winning or losing.

Fireworks

We can never be more than a flash

and a bang in the forgetful night

when even our memory fails us before it succeeds;

We’re lighting fireworks to remind ourselves

of what it’s like when we’re together.

Chris