Kathy and I went to see our first Poetry Slam last Thursday night up the University. 10 students presented their work to start things off, followed by the professional poets (how odd that sounds!). The pros were Broken Word, an Austin-based group, and were a load of fun.

Both the students and the pros did a good job, with a couple obvious crowd favorites among the students. Probably the most entertaining part of the evening was Broken Word’s “Haiku Death Match”, where each poet would select a haiku from his/her book of poetry, and the audience would then vote on their favorite. These ranged from clever to comic to poignant, and while perhaps not in the original spirit of haiku, did present some interesting approaches to getting meaning out of such a compact form.