Black Box Poetry Slam

On Thursday, May 17, 2018, Yakima Valley College will host the annual Black Box Poetry Slam in the Parker Room of the Deccio Higher Education Center, Building 8, on the Yakima Campus. Doors open for sign up at 6:00pm, event will begin at 6:30pm. Admission is $2 cash, which becomes the prize pot for the top three artists. All forms of spoken word are welcome. Performers are expected to have five poems/spoken word pieces prepared and there is a three-minute time limit for each piece.

“Yakima is catching on to slam poetry,” stated YVC English Instructor and Long-time Event Organizer Mark Fuzie. “They’re starting to catch on that it’s not a ‘dead poets society,’ that the voices in slam are passionate, new, and right now. They’re topical and not what one slammer calls ‘garden poetry.’ I love it when we get poets speaking Spanglish or Calo(accent on o), or when they use peculiar slang. You can’t always do that in print poetry. The cash winning is always a draw, too. Slammers who come from Toppenish or Tieton might win the gas money to get home! It’s just a lot of fun.”

The event is open to the public. Come get loud, click, clap, stomp and hear great poetry! For more information contact Mark Fuzie at 509.574.6800 x 3160 or mfuzie@yvcc.edu.

Contacts:

Jay Frank / 509.574.6870 / jfrank@yvcc.edu
Stefanie Menard / 509.574.4646 / smenard@yvcc.edu