Competitions begin at the local level and culminate each year in a national grand slam competition.
Pushing poetry to its next evolutionary level, slam poets combine rap and hip hop with traditional poetry to create a potent art form that is part performance art, part word magic. When Ray is arrested on a petty drug charge, he is sucked into the black hole of D.C.'s criminal justice system. While there, he finds his salvation in Lauren Bell, a beautiful writing teacher who helps him to understand and cultivate his skill. Using his wits and his dazzling verbal talents as weapons against the brutality of his forced surroundings, Ray learns to survive both in and out of jail while giving voice to the pain of his lost generation. Levin, still shaking from the bullets that had whizzed by him, was perplexed.