2012 WordFood Poet's Slam

This is a fresh call out to all street and beat spoken word maestros, hip-hop freestylers, haiku writers and performance poets. We want to give you two minutes and a mic and let you rip up the stage with fresh verses and tight rhymes that will set the Woodford night on fire!

The WordFood Slam is back on the festival menu following a tear-away victory to winner Jo Sri last year.

Once again, we call for all hot word chefs to slam new recipes into the mic, competing for $1000 cash and a Season festival pass for the following year (with your own feature at the slam final) and most important of all... the right to hold aloft the coveted perpetual ‘WordFood Slam Shield’!

Slam Heat is set to HIGH with six sizzling finalists to be drawn from two open pre-festival heats in Brisbane and Ipswich In November, before another six are chosen from the two heats held onsite at the festival itself.

Then, it is time for the main event. The WordFood Slam Final takes place at the Festival on December 31^st, 4:00pm – 6:00pm at the Parlour, hosted by WordFood Slammaster, Jacinta.

Slam is a live spoken word competition created in the 1980's by Marc ‘So What’ Smith in Chicago. Open to all people and all forms of spoken-word – poetry, hip-hop, theatre, whatever! Each person slams their words to a live audience. Five audience members are selected to score each poet's work. The audience at a slam has the freedom to express itself in any way it sees fit. Each poet entering the slam risks all and gives all to the slam and the audience... this is an event for the people!

SLAM RULES:

1. The Heats and Final: one slam round per heat with a maximum of 15 poets per heat; the first 15 to sign up at the heat will be chosen (please be respectful – first in first served)
2. Slammers must perform their own original work in less than 2 minutes. At 1 min 50 sec they will hear a time warning; at 2mins they will lose 1 point; at 2 min 30 sec their mic will be cut
3. The top 3 scores from each heat go through to the slam final on NYE
4. The highest heat scorer @ Ipswich and Brisbane heats also get a full Woodford Folk Festival 2012 pass; the two Ipswich and Brisbane heat runners up each get one NYE overnight camping pass.

5. Five judges are randomly selected from the audience at both the heats and the final (by the MC).
6. Sign-up starts 30 mins before each heat – first in, first served!
7. In the final, the overall winner is the highest score on the night. There is no runner-up/s.
8. The overall winner receives $1000, full season festival entry for the following year, and a spoken word feature at the Woodford Folk Festival the following year.