April is National Poetry Month. And the Las Vegas Poets Organization is ready to celebrate. We’re not just talking about florid rhyming couplets and booklets of verse. We’re talking about poetry slams - audience-judged performance events.
This month, local poets will be selected to represent Nevada on the Battle Born Poetry Slam Team. That team will head to the National Poetry Slam in Oakland, California.
Slam poets recite verse in a variety of forms and about a variety of subjects.
For example, in his poem " The Year of the Space Man," Battle Born Poetry Slam organizer AJ Moyer compares being in love to passing gas in a spacesuit.
2014 Battle Born Poetry Slam Team member and 2015 finalist Andy Hall woos a hypothetical, "juicy" prospective lover with food imagery in his poem " Mac the Nugget."
Hall says some of his and Moyer's other poems are more akin to an editorial in the local paper than outlandish simile and metaphor.
In another observation of National Poetry Month, the Las Vegas Poets Organization is seeking nominations for Clark County's new Poet Laureate. Poets may be self-nominated or nominated by others before May 1, 2015.
You can find a full list of events on tap for National Poetry Month in Las Vegas here.
Jorge Lara, Executive Director, Las Vegas Poets Organization; AJ Moyer, Co-founder/organizer, Battle Born Poetry Slam; Andy Hall, 2014 Team member and 2015 Team Finalist, Battle Born Poetry Slam