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What the Buck?

What exactly is a poetry slam? And what the buck is BuckSlamMN? Let us fill you in: slam poetry is the art and sport of competitive performance poetry. Based on the idea that everyone is entitled to an opinion on poetry, a slam puts the power in the audience's hands. Five audience members are given scorecards, and each participating poet gets three minutes to lay their art out there. Judges will each give a score from 0.0 to 10.0. We drop the low and high score, and add the three middle scores. At the end of the night, the poet with the highest score is the winner.

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At BuckSlam, this means a two-round event. In round one ten poets will perform. In the second round, we will cut to the top six poets, who will perform a second piece. Our winner is crowned with metaphorical antlers to walk away as a buck, with a buck. That's right, our glorious cash prize is one dollar!

Violence Prevention and Accountability

BuckSlam is committed to principles of restorative justice, prioritizing the safety and healing of harmed parties as well as the growth and learning of those who cause harm. We believe no one is disposable. We are working on a more in depth process for conflict resolution and accountability and will update our community once that exists.

Accessibility

BuckSlam is hosted at Boneshaker Books, a radical all-volunteer bookstore in south Minneapolis. Boneshaker has no steps and has one single stall, wheelchair-accessible restroom. The venue is near the 2, 67, 9, and 22 bus lines and the Franklin Ave. Blue Line stop. The parking lot is not available for us to use, but there is plenty of street parking. The venue fits 40 comfortably seated, but beyond that, it may be standing room only. More questions? Contact us here!

THE FOREST COUNCIL

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Tanesha Nicole Kozler

Zach Goldberg

José Gonzalez

Anna Šverclová

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Anna Binkovitz (Forest Council emeritus)

COMMUNITY PARTNERS

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Boneshaker Books

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BuckSlam MN is a sponsored project of Springboard for the Arts, a nonprofit arts service organization. Contributions on behalf of BuckSlam may be made payable to Springboard for the Arts and are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.

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