1-2-3 Slam at the 2026 Poetry Festival
Schedule
Sat Apr 11 2026 at 06:00 pm to 08:00 pm
UTC-04:00Location
Visual Arts Center of Richmond | Richmond, VA
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The 1-2-3 Poetry Slam is BACK in RVA! A fast-paced three round competition of intense spoken-word poetry and $600 in cash prizes!This event is in partnership with VisArts for The Richmond Poetry Festival happening April 10th and 11th.
First round is the 1 minute round.
Poems must be 1 minute or less
Second round is a the 2 minute round
Poems must be 2 minutes or less
Third round is the 3 minute round.
Poems must be 3 minutes or less
1st place wins $300
2nd place wins $200
3rd place wins $100
THE LIST IS FULL, but we will add your name to the wait list in case some drops out.
The competing poets are:
Breeze
Moe Flowz
Imajyn
Dezz
Maddie G
Sunflower Mo
Que
Ronda Loves Pink
Gravy
Venus
Liv
Zbey The Poet
Free and open to the public. Watch, cheer, be inspired, or even JUDGE the poetry slam!
1812 W Main St, Richmond, VA 23220
https://www.visarts.org for info
Hosted by Roscoe Burnems
Music by DJ Kinfolk
Rules #InTheDen
- There are 3 elimination rounds. All registered poets will compete in the first round, the top scores will move forward in the competion that night. We start with a maximum of 12 poets. 6 move on to the second round. 3 move on to the last round
-Each round is clean slate. We do not add the scores together from previous rounds
-Poems must be your original work
-poems are scored by 5 judges on a scale of 0.0 to 10.0. the highest and lowest scores are dropped. The three remaining score are totaled giving a poet their score for that round. the highest score a poem can receive is a 30.
The order of performances is determined during the slam via a random draw. The host will pull names out of a hat each round
-poets get the maximum amount of time for the round and a 10 second grace to perform. anything second over that results in a 0 for that round. The time starts once the poet engages the audience either by addressing the crowd verbally or doing a purposeful movement that infers the performance has started.
-No props, costumes, musical accompaniment, or groups are allowed onstage. You may read from a page or device but do not make reference to the page or device because it will be considered a prop. Violation of the rules will result in disqualification
Follow @RoscoeBurnems and @thewritersdenrva
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Where is it happening?
Visual Arts Center of Richmond, 1812 W Main St,Richmond, Virginia, United StatesEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
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