Poet-Linc: Poetry Slam

Poet-Linc is a unique documentation of a slam poetry contest created to celebrate an untapped pool of talented young artists from New York composing their original poetry to the central theme “I have a voice.” Collated as part of a ground-breaking series in partnership with The Lincoln Center and non-profits from each of the city’s five boroughs, the season’s initiative centred around the rationale of assisted teaching of participants via professional guidance, in the effort that each of these new “slam poets” would find their own voice.

A series of battles then became the focus for each competition night over an intensive six week period. Divided into three thematically diverse rounds, Declarative Poem, Narrative Poem and Free Verse/Free Style, the competition was fierce between the separate community organizations involved, each competing for just two spots in the Grand Slam Final. With the partnership non-profits including important, progressive organizations such as Curtis High School, El Puente, Girls Write Now, Global Writes, SAYA! (South Asian Youth Actions), and Urban Word, the intense and exhilarating series was one of great social and cultural recognition.

Poet-Linc contains 100 plus poems from those luminous stars of the series alongside work from established world names such as Darian Dauchan, Erik Maldonado, and Shanelle Gabriel, as well as critical essays on the medium and the season. The poems themselves portray a varied and illuminating survey into the attuned teenage mind, exploring and often inverting themes of race, love, lust, family and class in the playful, sardonic and relentless ebb and flow of the Poetry Slam itself.