what’s a Slam?  

Almost the opposite of the general Gerund ruckus, a poetry slam is a competition where poets perform their original poems in under 3 minutes without music, props, or costumes (our open mic encourages music, props, and costumes). These performers are then judged by five audience members, who give out scores ranging from 0.1 to 10.0. The highest and lowest scores are dropped from the poet’s tally for balance. You applaud the poet, not the score. There may be multiple bouts / rounds, or it could be a standard 4×4 (four teams with four poems each over four rounds). Typically, winning multiple rounds of individual slams will qualify a poet to join a regional team to compete for higher titles.

The Gerund team doesn’t require qualifiers, and has been representing Worcester, Massachusetts, for regional slams since 2024.

Our vibe is using the radical DIY energy of what it is to be a “dive-bar dirt-parking-lot poet” as inspiration to tackle the time constraints and expectations of a poetry slam, without losing our fists of gravel.

How to join the Dirty Gerund slam team?

• Any slam-curious regular Dirty Gerund community poets can join the team by speaking with Nic Jean on a Monday night. Regular means you read on our open-mic more than a few times a year, and are committed to attending team workshop/practices every week during the slam season.
• We typically send our team to at least two regional slams per year in the spring & summer. Sometimes this involves out of state travel, but, most of the team works full time, so we take into consideration everyone’s schedule as much as possible.
• You must be 21+, our home venue has a strict ID policy. We’ve tried hosting team meetings elsewhere, but find pre-show on-site is the most successful for fostering a team that values and represents the region well

Why join us instead of traveling to a slam venue to qualify for another team?

If that’s what interests you, you should do that, but if you’ve never had the chance to try slam, or have only very little experience, our team exists to be a low-barrier entry point for poets in central MA to dip a toe in the water and see what it’s like before going all-in on a higher stakes team.

We spend most of our time together learning and practicing before Gerund show-time on Monday evenings; we only ask that if you join us, you commit to us for the full season.

Worcester has had other slam teams represent the region before us.

Then there was several years of silence across the seven hills.

This started as a leg of our Roadshow, and turned out to be something new poets kept showing up for, so we’re doing our best to keep giving them that option.

We are thankful for the continued kindness of those who organize the regional slams for continuing to invite us back, and will see you all again in the 2027 season!

The team honors its Worcester roots and recognizes its responsibility to the Dirty Gerund as representatives to the public.
Together, we understand that creating truly equitable spaces is a perpetual, ongoing process which will evolve as we as individuals and a society learn and grow, and we are committed to this, to fostering trust, and to holding each other accountable for actions on and off the mic.