Master poets ready for slam in Marysville

Published 8:58 pm Sunday, March 1, 2009

Are you a poet and think you know it? Test your mettle and compete with the masters at the Fourth Ever Evergreen Invitational Poetry Slam on Saturday in Marysville.

Compete with more than 10 of the Northwest’s finest slam poets for hundreds of dollars in prizes, and priceless bragging rights.

A poetry slam is where poets perform their own work and are judged by randomly selected audience members holding up score cards, Olympics style. The judges resist being influenced and the audience persists. A slam is a gloves-off event with in-your-face fun. It’s also PG-13.

This year, there’s a strong field of competitors, at least one national slam champion and possibly a second-place finisher from France’s World Cup of Poetry. Organizer and poetry slam rock star Jack McCarthy called the Evergreen Invitational “one of the premier live poetry events of the year in Washington.”

The slam begins at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Evergreen Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 1607 Fourth St., Marysville. Recommended donation is $10; students $5. All proceeds go to the poets, the Universalist fellowship and the Marysville Food Bank.

Herald staff