Saturday evening, October 8^th, at 7:30, slam legend and Lake Stevens resident Jack McCarthy and the Evergreen Coffeehouse  in Marysville will host eight of the finest slam poets in the Northwest in the 6^th Evergreen Invitational Poetry Slam, a head-to-head competition for hundreds of dollars in prizes—and huge bragging rights.

A poetry slam is a competition in which poets perform their own work and are judged by randomly selected audience members holding up score cards, Olympic style. The job of the judges is to resist being influenced by the audience; the job of the audience is to influence the judges.

Poets are always competing—for publication, for awards, for academic positions. But in the past, poetic competition has always been very genteel, behind the scenes. A poetry slam is many things, but genteel is not one of them. The subtle-gloves are off. Think whispering, ranting, crying, laughing uproariously; think in-your-face. (While you’re at it, think PG-13.) If you’ve never seen a poetry slam, you have no idea how entertaining it can be. You owe yourself one.

Every year we have presented at least one national champion, and this year we expect at least two, plus the first-place finishers from France’s World Cup of Poetry, at least one official legend of the National Poetry Slam, and a couple engaged to be married on October 24^th. Four of our previous winners have also been national slam champions, and the fifth was a finalist this year for a Ruth Lilly Fellowship from Poaetry Magazine,

No other part of the country could put together this strong a field of poets. Master Inviter Jack McCarthy says, “This is the sixth year that we’ve done this, and all the reviews have been raves.”