About Me
Ocotillo Poetry Slam is a growing part of Tucson’s spoken word community. Founded in October of 2005 by Maya Asher, Teresa Driver and Lindsay Miller, the Slam quickly outgrew its original home at Espresso Art and moved to its current venue, Bentley's House of Coffee and Tea (try the ashtray milkshake).In the spring of 2006, we were adopted by Ocotillo Literary Endeavors, a 501(c)3 nonprofit.Based on the slam poetry format created in the 1980's by Marc Smith (so what?!?), Ocotillo Poetry Slam is a competitive, performance-based, audience-judged, interactive poetry reading. Poets compete with their own original work in a series of three rounds, and the lowest scoring poets are eliminated at the end of each round. The last poet standing wins fame, glory, the love and admiration of the audience, the right to host the next month's slam, $50, and the coveted Crown of Laurel Leaves.We have been a Poetry Slam, Inc. certified venue since 2006. We are the only certified slam in Tucson. For information on qualifying for the Tucson slam team, go to http://poetryslam.com/forum/index.php?topic=3799.0You can check us out at Bentley's, 1730 E Speedway, the 2nd and 4th Saturday of every month, at 7:00 pm. Our events are all ages, but parental discretion is advised. There is no cover charge for most OPS events, but we always encourage donations (and since we're a nonprofit, your donation is tax deductible, so get a receipt)!Bring your friends. Bring your loved ones. Bring your enemies, and we'll make them judge.
