<P> A poetry slam is a competition in which oral poets read or recite original work . Poetry slam began in Chicago in 1984 with its first competition designed to move poetry recitals from academia to a popular audience when American poet Marc Smith began experimenting with existing open microphone venues for poetry readings by making them competitive . The performances at a poetry slam are judged by a panel of judges , typically five , and usually selected from the audience , or sometimes judged by audience response . The judges usually give each poem a score on a scale of 0 -- 10 ( zero being the worst and ten being the best ) . The highest and lowest scores are dropped and the middle three are kept . The highest score one can receive is a 30 and the lowest one is a zero . </P>
<P> A poetry slam is a competition in which oral poets read or recite original work . Poetry slam began in Chicago in 1984 with its first competition designed to move poetry recitals from academia to a popular audience when American poet Marc Smith began experimenting with existing open microphone venues for poetry readings by making them competitive . The performances at a poetry slam are judged by a panel of judges , typically five , and usually selected from the audience , or sometimes judged by audience response . The judges usually give each poem a score on a scale of 0 -- 10 ( zero being the worst and ten being the best ) . The highest and lowest scores are dropped and the middle three are kept . The highest score one can receive is a 30 and the lowest one is a zero . </P>
where does the tradition of slam poetry come from
where does the tradition of slam poetry come from
Chicago in 1984
Chicago in 1984