Slam Season

The qualifying season for championships and team selection are different in every city, and here at Slam Enchantment, our goal is to make the qualifying process for a spot on any of our finals stages as easy to understand as possible, so here is the breakdown of our slam season, including the time frames for each finals stage. Also, below, you will find a breakdown of our scoring system and how to qualify for your shot at representing Albuquerque and Slam of Enchantment at a national competition.

 

National Competitions fall in this Order: National Poetry Slam (NPS) every August, Individual World Poetry Slam (iWPS) every October and Women of the World (WoW) Slam every March.

 

Each of the these competitions are hosted by a different city each year, with representatives coming from over 70 cities to compete annually. Each of these cities picks their representatives during a qualifying season of competitive poetry slams.

 

At SE, our qualifying season is year long, running from October to October each year. Poets participating in slams are given points based on their performance (as determined by random judges), based on a 4 point system.These points accumulate all year, and two weeks prior to each finals stage we pick the top 10 poets according to points earned, who compete for a place on the team or a chance to represent the city as an individual. Each of our finals stages will be preceded by a Last Chance Slam so poets who have not had an opportunity to compete regularly still have a shot at the finals stage!

 

The 4 point system for ranking poets works like this - at every qualifying slam, the judges will pick a first, second and third place winner, with every participating poet earning one point. Points are awarded in this order:

 

First Place - 4 points

Second Place - 3 points

Third Place - 2 points

Participation - 1 point

 

Our finals stages go down well in advance of the national competitions, in this order:

 

Team Selection for The National Poetry Slam - Every February

Grand Slam Championship for iWPS - Every June

WoW Finals - Every October

 

All of our slams are run in accordance with PSi (Poetry Slam, Inc.) rules.