Untitled Document Getting slammed with poetry by Nancy Oates Taut with anxiety, the competitors position themselves under the spotlight in the dim arena. One by one they bang out their routines before the line of stoic judges. The crowd impatiently waits to see the final numbers of each performance dissected down to the decimal. The air is thick with tension and sweat and smoke.
Finalists emerge, then are lopped away in sudden death rounds until only one is left standing.
A poetry slam, to be exact. Your performance becomes very important, because the criterion is how it hits the audience. It's not broken down into delivery and content. Evidently, the fans feel it when Jebsen steps on stage, and the Blue Roach poetry collective knows it. When the Blue Roach group stages its spring poetry slam on Feb. 24, Jebsen will have the honor of being the featured poet.