Southwest Shootout Poetry Festival Workshops
In addition to offering lively nights of competitive slam poetry, the Southwest Shootout Poetry Festival will offer writing workshops and open mics for participating teams and the general public.
For a full schedule of events please visit www.houstonvipslam.com/swso
Workshops and events at DiverseWorks are $5 (no preregistration necessary), and include:
Friday, June 13
11 am: Workshop: Who Are You? led by Dulcie Veluthakaran, singer-songwriter, poet, teacher and 2-time member of the Houston VIP Poetry Slam Team
11 am: Slammaster’s/Coaches Open Mic
1 pm: Cultural Open Mic
1 pm: Workshop: Group Poems led by Houston-based poet Ahmad “Nyne” Hygh
3 pm: Roulette Slam with Write About Now
3 pm: Workshop: Write What you Feel, Spit What You Know: The Craft of Combining Equal Parts Performance, and Equal Parts Writing, led by individual World Poetry Slam Champion and World Cup of Poetry Slam Champion, Joaquin Zihuatenego
Saturday, June 14
10 am: Workshop: Breaking the Box with Ebony Stewart, voted Slam Artist of the Year by National Poetry Awards
10 am: Workshop: The Three Lives of a Poem with Ed Mabrey, three-time Individual Poetry Slam Champion
12 pm: Haiku Deathmatch
2 pm: Youth Workshop and Slam presented by Writers in the Schools and Meta-four Houston (ages 13-19)
2 pm: Nerd Slam hosted by Christopher Michael
The Southwest Shootout is a regional poetry slam tournament and showcase with artists representing the greater Southwest United States. This year, Houston VIP Poetry Slam is proud to announce that the 2014 Southwest Shootout will be in the historic Heights neighborhood in Houston, TX. Featuring teams from Albuquerque Poetry Slam, Red Dirt Poetry Slam (Oklahoma City, OK), Meta-four Houston, Eclectic Truth (Baton Rouge, LA), Austin Neo-Soul, Backup Plan (Baton Rouge, LA), Austin Poetry Slam, UrbSLAM (St. Louis, MO), Laredo Border Slam, Dallas Poetry Slam, Team Gravy Poetry Slam (Killeen, TX), The Blah Blah Blah Poetry Spot (San Antonio, TX), The Lafayette National Poetry Slam Team, Mic Check (Bryan, TX), Slam New Orleans, Hear Here (Colorado) and Houston VIP Slam.
SUPPORT
This project is funded by a grant from the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance.