All Star SLAM

Now Booking for the 2024-25 School Season

Slam is a poetic competition in which the audience rates each poem with a score of 1-10, just like in the Olympics. In this case, the judges are the students! And the poets? Former Canadian SLAM champ Brendan McLeod, Second City alum Justin Carter, and Julia Course—a 14-year veteran at the Shaw Festival. They present a wide-range of poetic styles and subject matter: high-octane original poetry, classical dramatic monologue, silly stand-up and improv. All Star SLAM is a supportive forum that introduces students to some great poetry and performance in an accessible manner that is interactive, engaging, hilarious, and deeply poignant. As one student put it: “It was better than Beyoncé!” (which is a stretch, but it’s what we’re aiming for).