BUCKSLAM MN
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 twelve 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 Moon Palace Books, an independent neighborhood bookstore in south Minneapolis with a long history of supporting the arts and hosting literary events in their performance space. Moon Palace requires masks when inside the store, and BuckSlam requires masks at our events (unless you’re on the mic). The store itself is wheelchair and walker accessible and has multiple accessible restrooms. The stage in the performance space is on risers with steps, but the mic can be lowered to floor-level for anyone who needs it. The performance space can accommodate approximately 80 people. More questions? Contact us here!
THE FOREST COUNCIL
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Kanoro day
Tanesha Nicole Kozler
Zach Goldberg
José Gonzalez
Anna Šverclová
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Anna Binkovitz (Forest Council emeritus)
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.
