Oakland, Ca: The Metro Opera House sounds like a classy venue, and it is classy. . . in a punk rock sort of way. The room looked like a fight club and pitted 3 of the top 10 teams in a brutal slam full of wack judges, incredible poetry, heightened emotions, and extreme sweaty heat. When the smoke cleared, the scores went down like this:
1st) New York City, Nuyorican Poet’s Café 107.4
2nd) Austin Poetry Slam 107.3
3rd) Albuquerque Poetry Slam 107.2
4th) Suffern Slam 91.3
A heartbreaking finish, but it was enough to get Albuquerque into the National Poetry Slam Semi-Finals tonight. Currently ranked 20th in the country, ABQ Slams goes up against our sister city, Denver Mercury, Dallas Poetry Slam, DADA Slam out of Delray Beach, and Slamageddon from Baltimore.
You can watch the live scoring updates online at scores.poetryslam.com