April is Poetry Month! The Writer's Den Poetry Slam presents the triumphant return of the Annual Poetry Slam at the Richmond Public Library! As always, this event is free and open to the public. Poets from all over the city pour their heart and soul onto the stage to be judged the winner. Cash prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. Come see an RVA tradition and the best poets competing First Friday in April. Please register.

What is a poetry slam?

A poetry slam is a spoken-word competition in which poets perform their original work; telling their story of pain, triumph, adversity, joy, humor, their passionate opinions on politics, socio-economics, cultures, hilarious poems, or poems about nothing at all, and are THEN scored by 5 judges. Every round judges score the poets on a scale of 0.0 to 10.0 scoring the poets on the writing , the performance, and originality of the poem. The top scores move forward in the competition that night.
The rules at a "normal poetry slam" are a little different, but here are the  rules #intheden :
-3 elimination rounds
-original work only (no covers and no plagiarism)
-poets get 3 MINUTES AND 10 SECONDS to perform. Any poem longer than that (3:11 and higher) is an automatic disqualification
- no props of any kind including but not limited to: clothing, jewelry, items brought on stage, etc. you may bring paper or device to read from, but do not reference it, because then it becomes a prop.
-time starts when you engage the audience, most of the time that means when you start the poem but any movement or word that insinuates you've begun performing will start the clock (so don't speak or engage the audience until you're ready to begin your poem)
-every round is random, we literally draw your name from a bowl every round
-every round is clean slate. we do not tally all the scores at the end.