Season Four of Nitty Gritty Slam continues on Tuesday, November 4 at The Low Beat with a very special featured poet, Adriana Ramirez from the Steel City Slam in Pittsburgh.
Adriana E. Ramirez is a nonfiction writer, storyteller, and performance poet based in Pittsburgh and Houston, where she is writing a book about her death fantasies, Colombia, and the way we tell stories around violence. She teaches in the English Department at the University of Pittsburgh; her intellectual interests include violence, code-switching, digital literature, remix culture, video games, confessional poetry, and testimonio. Once ranked the 26th slam poet in the world (Individual World Poetry Slam, 2006), she now runs the Steel City Slam in Pittsburgh and serves on the Executive Committee for Poetry Slam Inc, while continuing to perform on stages around the country. She was recently featured in the 2014 Legends of Poetry Slam Showcase and TEDxHouston. Her writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Convolution, HEArt, Apogee, and Nerve.com. Ramirez is the author of The Swallows (Blue Hearts Press) and the nonfiction editor of DISMANTLE (Thread Makes Blanket Press). Her second collection of poetry, Trusting in Imaginary Spaces, is forthcoming from Tired Hearts Press.
At the last show, our Inappropriate Slam, we saw some new faces get up on stage with rookie slammer Anna taking the win, narrowly beating Samson in the final round. With the dust settled and the points added up, here are the top eight poets so far in first half of Season Four as we get closer to our first Semi-Final on November 18: L-Majesty (10), Poetyc Visionz (8), Amani (8), Mojavi (7), Samson Dikeman (6), Victorio (5), Brandon Williamson (5), Anna (5).
Who is going to make it on to that list and head to the first Semi-Final? Who is setting their sights on making the trip down to Newark, NJ next summer to represent Albany and NGS at the National Poetry Slam? We will find out on November 4 at NGS #81.
If you’re not into competing in the slam, but want to get on stage and share your work, we have an open mic hosted by Kevin Peterson before the slam. Sign up begins at 7:00pm, open mic starts at 7:30, and then Thom Francis starts the slam at 8:00pm. Admission is $5.00 ($3.00 with student ID). This is an 18+ show.
If you can’t make it out to the show that night, be sure to follow along on Twitter –@NittyGrittySlam and #NGS81.
Albany Poets, Urban Guerilla Theatre, and The Frequency North Reading Series have brought slam back to Albany with the Nitty Gritty Slam at The Low Beat (335 Central Ave.) on the 1st and 3rd Tuesday’s of each month.
For information on the rules and format of the Nitty Gritty Slam and to meet the team, go to http://nittygrittyslam.com
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