The Toronto Poetry Project (the group who bring you the Toronto Poetry Slam @ the Drake) is partnering with Up From the Roots to announce a ground-breaking slam poetry event for this city.

With the help of Mid-West poetry ambassadors the Toronto Slam Fam, we will be hosting a four-day slam poetry festival called “The Rustbelt Poetry Slam”. The Rustbelt has been a Midwestern poetry slam tradition for a decade with Toronto’s Slam Fam sending a team down to the US for the past 3 years. For their special tenth anniversary, the first non-Midwestern US city to have the honour to host this event is Toronto.

On May 28, the fest starts off with a Wild Card Slam. There will be a slam open to anyone for two spots on a team that will feature Toronto Poetry Slam’s Tomy Bewick and UFTR’s Dwayne Morgan at the Dominion on Queen ($5 at the door).

On the 29th, preliminaries begin at the Poor Alex Theatre (772A Dundas St W ) at 7pm with a DJ after the two preliminary bouts.

The next day (May 30) at noon the second preliminariies will be held at the Trane studio (964 Bathurst Ave). Oh yes, daylight and poetry slam, together at last.

Finals will be held Sat. May 30 at the historic Bloor Cinema. This is HUGE, because it will be the first time a poetry slam has been hosted at Bloor Cinema. (If there’s one event to check out during Rustbelt, this is it)

Finally, on the Sunday all the hosts and some of the competitors will be performing for free at the first Pedestrian Sunday at Kensington Market for the season. Most likely near Uprising.

So why should you come?

1/ If you were not at the CFSW when Toronto was the host you probably haven’t felt the energy a team slam poetry event creates. With over 500 rabid slam poetry fanatics. Here’s your chance to feel that energy in the heart of the Annex!

2/ A number of the teams coming have poets who have featured at the Toronto Poetry Slam (Will Evans, Dave Nichols), competed on national stages such as; CFSW and US Nationals (Dwayne Morgan, J.W. Baz), and world stages such as; IWPS, WOWS, (Versiz, Barbara Fant)

3/ The Toronto team features three past Toronto Poetry Slam champions (the allegedly retired Dane Jah Ras, gypsy eyes and Made Wade) and we also have Tomy Bewick as a TPS representative on the Wild Card team.

4/ Local and guest hosts include the hosts of the second oldest slam in the world (Steve and Deb Marsh), the 2007 Individual World Champion (Ed Mabrey), multi - Toronto Poetry Slam team member White Noise, $100 Slam’s Soulfistikato, Word Jam’s Yehuda “PAN” Fisher and the “Big Deal” David Silverberg.

Both prelims will be $8 at the door while the finals shall be $20 at the door. Alternatively, passes for both preliminaries and finals can be ordered online at http://www.rustbelttoronto.com for the recently reduced price of $25 dollars, while tickets for the finals can be purchased for $15 at TOTix.ca

(Or get a hold of me to link up to get tix.)

For more details, teams coming, tickets and passes, etc., check out our event website http://www.rustbelttoronto.com

Don’t miss out on this historic event in Toronto Poetry Slam evolution.

It’s like Toronto Poetry Slam x WTF.

This entry was posted by Dave under Uncategorized.