Ybor City Poetry Slam

SAT 10/24/26 - SAT 11/12/26 - SAT 12/12/26
The Commodore — 811 E 7th Ave, Tampa, FL 33602

7PM

Poet Sign Up Here!

What is poetry slam?

  • 3 Rounds

    A Poetry Slam is a competitive spoken word poetry competition that has three rounds. In each round, the competing poet will have 3 minutes to perform a poem of their choosing.

    10 poets perform in the first round. 6 in the second. 3 in the final round.

  • 5 Judges

    After each poet performs, their piece will be judged by 5 judges on a 0-10 scale (Ex. 7.4, 9.8 etc.). The highest score and the lowest score will both be dropped and the middle three scores will be added together to give the poets score for that round (Between 0-30)

  • 1 Winner

    After 3 rounds, the highest-scoring poet in the final round will be crowned the winner! They will win money, bragging rights, and their points will be totaled toward their season rankings.

  • Thousands Strong

    Slam poetry is a nationwide culture with both team and individual poetry slams happening all throughout the year. These slams offer big stages, big prizes, and opportunities to connect with poets, writers, and performers from all over the country!

  • • 3-round competition

    • No props allowed (Books or devices to read from ARE ALLOWED unless your poem references the said device/book you’re using)

    • 5 Judges will be scoring each performance on a scale of 0.0 - 10.0 using decimal points. The highest and lowest scores are dropped and the 3 middle scores are added together to determine the poets score for the round (0-30)

    • The Judges will be chosen out of the audience on the criteria that they do not know any of the poets. There will be a good faith attempt to get unbiased and diverse judges

    • There is a time limit of 3 minutes per poem, with a 10-second grace period (3:10). 0.5 points are deducted for every 10 seconds you go over time starting at 3:11. (therefore once you hit 3:11 you receive a 0.5 penalty to your round score)

    • Maximum number of slammers is 10

    • Eliminations occur between each round after the first

    • Round 2 eliminates the four lowest-scoring poets of round 1

    • Round 3 eliminates the three lowest-scoring poets of round 2

    • 1st Round order is determined by random number draw

    • 2nd Round order is determined by the highest to lowest scoring poet from round 1

    • Final 3 poets for round 3 are determined by adding the poet’s scores from rounds 1 & 2 accumulatively.

    • Round 3 order is determined by the highest to a lowest cumulative score

    • The winner of the final round is determined by the highest-scoring poem of that round alone or “Clean Slate”

    • In the case of a tie, we will then determine the winner by adding the poet’s scores from all 3 Rounds together accumulatively

    • If there is still a tie after adding the cumulative scores, the poets must face off in a head-to-head (One more poem each), in which the judges will select the name of the poet they feel should win, rather than giving a score

    • Each qualifier slam costs $10 to enter, the winner of the slam gets the pot ($100) plus whatever sponsors are able to add