Poets Invited to Spill The Ink on June 17; First Place Takes $500
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Tru Poet will host the “Spill the Ink: Poetry Slam” competition on June 17, 2023, at The Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas in downtown Pine Bluff.
Cash Prizes are $500 for First place, $300 for Second, $100 for Third
The Arts & Science Center invites community members to attend its inaugural poetry slam. Spill the Ink: Poetry Slam begins at 6 p.m. Saturday, June 17, at the Catherine M. Bellamy Theater at ASC, 701 S. Main St. in Pine Bluff.
Cash prizes will be awarded to first place with $500, second place with $300, and third place with $100.
The program was made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Participants will battle through three rounds of poetry and are encouraged (but not required) to prepare a different poem for each round. The competition will be judged by professional poets and three randomly selected members from the audience. Judges will score poems based on their own subjective rubrics — their score is their score.
Spill the Ink: Poetry Slam was created following great interest in poetry and spoken word within the Southeast Arkansas community.
“Pine Bluff has welcomed our poetry events as a breath of fresh air and a resurgence in downtown activities,” says Shakeelah Rahmaan, ASC education programs manager, who is organizing the event.
“Our community wants to see more of this type of programming,” she says. “Pine Bluff has a rich history in the arts, and ASC seeks to build upon that to offer the best programming possible to our community.”
Nationally ranked poet Tru Poet of Little Rock will host. He is a traveling spoken-word artist and author, with his latest self-published book Writing Through The Pain. His poetry troop, Foreign Tongues, ranked second place in the second-largest poetry competition in the world in 2014, The Southern Fried Poetry Competition. He placed fifth in the same competition in 2018 as an individual.
“Tru is a great host who engages the audience,” says Rahmaan. “We’ve worked with Tru in the past with our ART WORKS Presents programming and he has a charisma that really shines through on stage.”
Poet Drekkia Morning will join the slam as a special guest judge. She is an award-winning spoken word and teaching artist.
Doors open at 6 p.m. and ASC will open the stage for open-mic poetry at 6:30. The competition kicks off at 7 p.m. Winners will be announced at 9:30 p.m.
Registration to participate in the poetry slam is $25 for ASC members and $30 for nonmembers. All poets must be registered for the competition before round one begins at 7 p.m. Participants must be 16 years of age or older.
Visitors are also encouraged to attend; the entry fee to watch is $10 for ASC members and $15 for nonmembers. Drinks and snacks will be available for purchase.
Register here or by calling (870) 536-3375.
