Poetry has always been a huge part of my life on campus. As an English major with a Creative Writing concentration, and as the current president of Lyrically Inclined, Cornell College’s poetry club. I find myself writing, listening, reading, and engaging with poetry often.
It’s always a treat to go to an open mic, especially in Iowa City, a UNESCO city of literature. Slam-O-Vision only elevates the experience. In slam poetry’s very own Eurovision, cities from all over the world host competitions and send a video of the winning participant’s poem to a final round.
Sign your name onto a first-come, first-served sheet, and you become a participant in this global competition. It starts with a three-round structure, with a limited amount of time for each poet. If you go over, you lose points. Guests, picked randomly from the crowd, are asked if they have a connection to a competing poet. If the guest claims no connection, they receive the special job of judge. With five judges, the Slam-O-Vision organizers drop the highest and the lowest score to calculate if you make it to the next round.
The performance for round one takes the longest, as the most participants remain in the game. They start with a sacrificial poet to help judges get used to the practice, as it’s common for the first poet to get the worst score. It’s often the emcee, or the previous year’s winner. For my performance personally, I was 0.1 away from making it to the second round. You live, and you shrug.
Depending on the number of poets in the first round, the second round makes sure to cut the size down. A shorter round, but now with the stakes more glaring than ever, the judges and the poets are very aware of the scores they give. The crowd is encouraged to say “Higher!” if they believe a judge has scored too low and the energy is electric. The variety in poets and poems becomes obvious as they share more of their repertoire. It’s dizzying, exciting, and makes your hand twitch to write more of your own.
The final, third round of the event leaves us with four finalists. The four finalists try to share the best of their poems here, as this is the poem that moves on to the global round. This can be difficult because they may have used some of their greater works in order to make it this far. It’s a strategy game in some regards, but the best final performance wins it all. For this year, it was alumni Henry Morray who took the win. This was his second time winning for Iowa City, with a few years in between.
While the night ends after the third round, the competition continues. Competing cities include Dublin, Ireland; Manchester, England; Vilnius, Lithuania; Tartu, Estonia; Melbourne, Australia; and many others, alongside, of course, Iowa City, United States. Scoring 218 points, a whopping 34 points above second place, Henry Morray went on to win globally as well.
As a previous president of Lyrically Inclined, Henry Morray’s resounding win was wonderful to watch. Poets, of all kinds of differences in experience, some who tried out the stage for the first time, contributed to the amazing energy of the event. The structure of a competition, the change in scenery, and the unique mix that is Iowa City’s poetry scene led to an enjoyable and inspiring evening.
As someone who hosts the majority of our open mics on campus, I’m always looking to improve how we handle them. I enjoy seeing how events like Slam-O-Vision are handled and how organizations differ. In 2023, I had the pleasure of interning for Chautauqua Writers’ Center. While there, I participated in several open mics. These events took place outside, and as a result, we were often joined by those passing by. There was also zero competition involved and no sign-up sheet. To share your poetry, or for some,
read someone else’s, you simply raised your hand when they prompted for the next poet. It was a free-flowing environment that led to a lot of interaction between guests. You had to pay attention to who else may be interested and gauge if there was a space to share again, if you wanted.
Lyrically Inclined’s open mics fall closer to Chautauqua’s than Iowa City’s Slam-O-Vision. While a sign-up sheet exists, when it falls short, there will be a break to grab refreshments and chat as the sign-up sheet fills up once more. This allows people multiple turns, if desired, as well as time for some to build the courage to perform. All three styles have their pros and cons. As a senior, the variety helps me consider how I might want to continue interacting with open mics, and poetry, in the future. As I leave Cornell’s campus, and most likely Iowa City’s vicinity, behind, it’s important to consider where and how I might want to interact with open mics next. I could also make the move to switch to page poetry circles. There’s a lot to consider. As I move on, Slam-O-Vision, my first open mic as a freshman, will always hold a special place in my heart.
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