"Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before." Audre Lorde

The DC Youth Slam Team is an award-winning poetry slam team that has represented DC at regional slam competitions, at the Brave New Voices Poetry Festival (where we won first place in 2014), and in international partnerships like our yearly trip to South Africa. The slam team is comprised of 4-6 youth poets selected via a series of judged performances at poetry slams. Through weekly team meetings, this program not only focuses on writing, but on students collaborating with one another to create group poems, accept and give feedback, and learn how to perform their own writing in a way that effectively impacts an audience.

This program is for any student who writes poetry or hip-hop and is interested in how their work can be elevated off of the page and onto the stage. Students undergo rigorous preliminary competitions to get on the team and then undergo intensive writing and performance workshops in order to represent DC at the Brave New Voices International Festival that happens every summer.

Interested in joining the team? Please register online by clicking on the link below that says REGISTER. While in-person registration will be open the day of, each slam will consist of the first 10 registered competitors. Your participation will be confirmed by email the day before each event. Online registration is open until the 6:00 pm the day before the slam.

Competitors who register online do not pay for entry. If you sign up on the day of the event or are pulled from the waiting list your entry fee will be returned at the end of the slam.

Finalist are determined by a point system. 1st place - 4 points, 2nd Place - 3 points, 3rd place - 2 points, and 1 point for all other competing poets. The top 10 slammers, with the most accumulated points, will make it to DCYST Finals on Saturday, March 23rd.

A complete list of the slam dates is linked below.

SLAM DATES

To register, click on the link below.

For booking inquiries and/or additional information, please email chelsea@splitthisrock.org.

SQUADS

VIDEOS

Subscribe to Youth Speaks for more Brave New Voices here: http://goo.gl/V1osej Created and produced by Youth Speaks, Brave New Voices is the nation's first youth-centric poetry slam, and is the largest most diverse ongoing spoken word event in the world.

Subscribe to Youth Speaks for more Brave New Voices here: http://goo.gl/V1osej Poetry from the 2013 Brave New Voices Grand Slam Finals at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago. Created and produced by Youth Speaks, Brave New Voices is the nation's first youth-centric poetry slam, and is the largest most diverse ongoing spoken word event in the world.

Poetry from the Brave New Voices Grand Slam Finals at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago.