The Individual World Poetry Slam (aka iWPS) is an annual poetry slam championship for individual poets (as opposed to the National Poetry Slam, which is for teams). This year iWPS will be held in Berkeley, California - October 8-10. PAKZOO sent a poet (Karrie Waarala) to iWPS for the first time last year. We would like to send another poet to the 2009 iWPS event.

Unfortunately this is a relatively short turn around from the National Poetry Slam (being held in West Palm Beach as I type this). We are going to have to hold a tournament pretty quickly if we're going to send a poet to iWPS.

We are tentatively setting the qualification tournament for Wednesday, September 9th at the Strutt. However, please be advised that this date might change pending some discussions with venue owners.

If you are interested in competing in the iWPS qualifying tournament for a chance to represent the great city of Kalamazoo in the 2009 iWPS tournament, please contact me at tabannon@gmail.com. In order to compete in the qualifying tournament, you must have come in first or second (or third in a super slam) since our iWPS tournament last year.

Unfortunately, we do not have the funding to pay for hotel or airfare this year, so the winning poet will have to pay their way to Berkeley.

Check back here for more information and possible date changes.