The November Oneonta Poetry slam brought a large, raucous crowd to the Black Oak Tavern on a week's notice. Joseph LMS served as the Slam Master, and DJ Jonas manned the ones and twos for the evening. Angel's outstanding sacrifice, which received a pair of scores in the nines, set the tone for the slam to follow. Poet after poet came hard on subjects ranging from embracing the anarchy to how to deal with sexual frustration to remembering to use words as a weapon for change. However, several poets were penalized for time limit violations.

(F*CK TIME!! but remember: Three (3) minutes with a 10-second grace period is what you've got to work with.)

After the dust (and penalties) had settled, the three poets left standing were two-time Oneonta Slam Team member Jimmy the Loch, Brooklyn transplant Ben Couch, and -- in her first time on the Black Oak stage, SUCO student Sierra. Sierra, who had closed the first round with a bang by garnering all nines and earned people's champ status for the evening, lead off with a poem about being unable to make a move on a crush. Her high energy, rapid delivery and "every-person-ever-in-that-situation-felt-it" writing style earned scores in the mid-nines, setting the bar high with a 28.8.

Couch followed with a poem born of dating game frustration that nearly guaranteed he'd go home single (which tends to happen when the first line drops an F-bomb on all females ...) The singsong flow and bitterness earned Couch low nines, but his 28.1 wasn't enough to top Sierra.

Jimmy the Loch then stepped to the mic, ready to close out the contest. Jimmy, reading off paper, had the crowd going bananas with a machine-gun flow conveying a highly literate, animal-centric poem that, as host LMS said, "you might not have understood, but got damn you knew it was hot!" The Loch's scores bottomed out with a 9.5, and maxed at the evening's first and only 10. His combined 29-plus sealed the slam.
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Thanks again to everyone who came, and anyone reading this who didn't, we'll see you in December. And feel free to hang around afterward, grab a drink and meet the poets (or just some new faces). People like people, and especially people who respect the art enough to come out to watch the poets perform.

Be easy, keep writing and do how you do.