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mission

The mission of the Boston Poetry Slam is to foster new work and new voices in performance poetry, to drive the evolution of the genre, and to promote poetry to the widest and most diverse audience possible using the nurturing environment of the open mic, the appeal of compelling featured poets, and the competition of poetry slam.

The Boston Poetry Slam holds the following to be true:

  • that performance poetry is a good and suitable medium for crafting communication, venting emotion, challenging language, drawing attention, defeating fear, and creating art;
  • that the development of the craft of performance poetry is a worthwhile pursuit in and of itself;
  • that performance poetry is a genre that may be sharpened through the competitive structure of poetry slam;
  • that it is reasonable and appropriate to compensate poets for their work based upon their ability to engage, entertain, educate, and evolve the genre.