The Poetry Room Presents Native Child Youth Slam

Name: The Poetry Room Presents Native Child Youth Slam
Start: 2026-04-25T15:00:00-04:00
Location: The Robin Theatre

Schedule

Sat, 25 Apr, 2026 at 03:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

The Robin Theatre | Lansing, MI

10 Local youth poets. 3 rounds. 1 stage.
They’ll battle it out for $500, the Inaugural Native Child Youth Slam. Judges and full poet lineup TBA — but trust us, it’s going to be stacked. Pull up, bring your crew, and witness the slam poetry at its finest.
Winner gets $500 + trophy belt
2nd place $250
The rest will get $100 for participating
Doors 2:30pm
BOUT DRAW 2:45pm
Event: 3:00pm
Rules:
* Poems must be original
* Poet must be a Greater Lansing Area student
* Poem cannot be reused from previous rounds
* Poems should be limited to three minutes w/ 10 second grace.
-.5 for every 10 second. (ie: 3:11 will be -.5. 3:20 will be -1)
* Poets may recite their poems from memory or read them from the page/phone
Performance rules
* Poets may not use props, costumes, or musical instruments
* Poets should use their voice and body to perform
* Time starts at interaction with the audience with the discretion of the bout manager
Scoring
* Accumulative for the first two rounds. 1v1 for the final bout
* cuts will be first round all 10 poets, second round 5 then third round will be top 2. if there is ties for the first two rounds, we will use the dropped scores to see who moves on and who gets dropped.
* final round will not be scored - rather judges will pick a name of the winner.
Bout Draw
* They will be random draws first two rounds.
* final round will be heads / tails. The person to call it will be the person with the higher score after two rounds. If they are tied then - it will be a draw.
Judges
Judges announced soon.
Judges award scores to each poet's poem, on a scale of zero to ten with one decimal point (ie: 9.1)

This is a free/donation based event.
This activity is supported in part by the Arts Council of Greater Lansing