If you cannot participate for the awesome prize pool, see the bottom of this journal for a possible reward.

A few days ago #Elocutionists received a huge helping of prize donations for an unnamed contest the likes and scale of which have never been seen on deviantART before. What is it, you ask?




A poetry slam is a "no holds barred" spoken word competition. Poets are encouraged to alliterate, rhyme, shout, whisper, zing, compliment, parody, satirize, improvise, recite, quote, play with words and even sing if the opportunity arises.

For the longest time the #Elocutionists team have wanted to hear the roaring voice of literature, and this month we don't want to hear just any spoken word for a chance at prizes— NO! We want to listen to a writer's passion, emotion, and drive to keep being who they are; their inspiration to keep writing as they will and we want to hear you question and define yourself; who you are; why you are; to what you are. We want you to slam the conventional rules of writing and go all out to evoke a feeling of understanding of who you are to others in your poem.

Our poetry slam, dubbed 'Louder Than dA Bomb', will be held during the month of May. No days fewer. No days more than that. You will have until May 31st 11:59 PM UTC to compose and record a slam poem.




It means find the nearest source of equipment that will record your voice, be it a phone, video camera or a mic and start practicing— those prizes aren't going to earn themselves. As the two videos show below, slam poetry is more than just writing a poem. It's about crafting a performance.





While we'd prefer the entries to not have visuals and be audio only, we understand the disservice this does to the overall performance. Therefore, video entries are allowed on the basis that the poet records themself and only themselves performing their poem. We will not accept picture slideshows or anything else of the sort. Video submissions will still be scored as if they were audio only, however, to be fair to all participants. All entries must be between 1-3 minutes long. Please do not add music or any other sound effects besides what you can vocalize. No props or costumes will be tolerated on video entries.




No. There is a theme for this slam. I was quite serious when I said we'd like you to define 'who you are.' But we don't want to hear what you look like or what your favorite band is. We want to hear you express yourself on a level that adds a whole new dimension to your deviantART personality.






Don't worry. The #Elocutionists team will be giving their all to help anybody who needs it. Send a note to the group from our home page if you are unclear about any parts of the contest.

We'll be hosting a workshop chat event in our chatroom: #SpeakTheWords on the 18th free for anybody to attend. The focus of the event (held twice at two different times) will be to answer any questions about the contest or creating and performing a piece of slam poetry. There will also be opportunities for critique and feedback from #Elocutionists readers. More information will be announced at a later date through #Elocutionists and #CRLiterature.




You don't. Currently deviantART doesn't really support audio files, so files will need to be hosted offsite at places like soundcloud.com or blogs that support audio players. Once you have done this, link the audio in the writer's comments of your literature deviation (you will need to submit the text of your slam poem to deviantART and to the #Elocutionists' Louder Than dA Bomb gallery folder, which will be open shortly).




Entries must follow the theme of Self-Identity and must be work written for this contest.
Entries must be literature deviations containing the text of the slam poem with a link to where the audio can be heard.
The performance of the slam poem must be between 1-3 minutes. If it is longer or shorter we will ask you to modify the poem.
Video submissions are accepted (via a link to youtube in the writer's comments of the literature deviation) provided that the video shows the poet performing their piece.
No music, props, costumes on any audio or video entries. While singing is allowed, it's allowed only in moderation and to illustrate points. We will not tolerate entirely sung pieces.
Prize donors are allowed to enter the poetry slam as well.
Entries must follow deviantART's rules for submitting literature.




Judging will take place after the month of May has ended. Judging takes into account content, diction, but not how the poem is read on paper; rather, how the poem is performed. This means that even the most wonderful poem submitted can have an overall score that will suffer greatly if the poet rushes recording themselves and puts out a poor performance. It's important to take your time and practice your performance before submitting to the contest. Don't forget we will be hosting a chat event during May for the contest that will include feedback and critique!

Slam poetry has no set rubric for judging other than  a scale of 0-10. Judges are encouraged to give out the first and highest score they think of upon hearing the performance. Because of the lack of a rubric, judging works by dropping the lowest and highest scores and adding the three middle scores with the highest possible score being a 30. If someone scored the following:



then their score would look like this:



for a total of:



In the event of a tie for anybody who places, we will reach out to our volunteer judges to score the pieces.








To further celebrate this event we will be giving away a 3 month sub to someone (or a person of their choice) to anybody who comments below answering the following questions.




The best of luck to everybody who enters!
The #Elocutionists team.