Hammer & Tongue Open Slam

Time for the next open round of the Cambridge Hammer & Tongue open slam season… Spoken word artistry and competitive fervour. What more could you want?
This is your chance to become part of the spoken word slam brilliance that has graced this here fair city since 2009, in the warm and wonderful surroundings of fabulous venue Cambridge Junction. Sign up as one of the eight to compete for a place in the Regional Final next September, become a judge, or just dive in and soak up the atmosphere and talent on display.

We have featured artists (touring all the different regional Hammer & Tongues for this month) and a local support act.

Hosted by Fay Roberts, a Cambridge-based poet, musician, and unrepentant geek.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fancy Slamming?

The rules for H&T slams are as follows:

Slammers are chosen at random from the sign-up list to perform – spoken word only, no music, no props. Each competitor has 3 minutes from the time they start talking on the mic. After 30 seconds’ grace period, they start losing points (1 point for every 10 seconds!). At the end, they’re given points out of 10 by 5 judges chosen from the audience, while the top and bottom scores are removed to ensure fairness. The slammer gets a score out of 30, and the competition moves on.

The winner of that evening’s competition goes through to the Regional Final (the Cambridge one tends to be held in September), and the winner (and runner-up) of the Regional Final goes through to the National Final. The winner of the National Final gets crowned H&T National Slam Champion and can then go on to compete in things like the Radio 4 slam championships, the international slam championships, etc.

Aspirant competitors can sign up either by rocking up before (or as) doors open on the night (typically 7:15pm for an 7:45pm start) or by booking slam tickets in advance online (http://bit.ly/htcjunctionjun). You can “express an interest” by emailing your name in advance, but that only gets you on the reserve list until you pay on the door. To get on the reserve list, email us on cambridge@hammerandtongue.com with the Subject “June 15 Slam Reserve Request” giving us your email address and mobile number (we won’t give these to anyone else!).

There are no limitations on style of poetry – a typical slam will see sonnets, blank verse, hip-hop, rhyming iambic pentametric couplets and more all cross the stage – and we’ve seen winners who’ve read their poems out from the written version (paper, kindle, phone, beermat) so, while there are advantages to learning your pieces off by heart, it’s not a requirement!