By Philly Pigeon co-founder Jacob Winterstein

With support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation The Philly Pigeon was able to fly five poets and a coach to the National Poetry Slam (NPS) in Oakland California From August 5th-9th.

A poetry slam is a competition between poets performing original work judged by five random members of the audience. The Philly Pigeon’s team was made up of the top five finishers from our Grand Slam Finals last May.

For all of May, June and July the poets met twice a week, writing, choreographing, editing, critiquing and rehearsing individual and group poems.

At the National Poetry Slam seventy-two teams of poets from across North America converge for a week of workshops, community building, late night poetry readings and friendly competition. After three nights of preliminary bouts twenty teams make it to Semi Finals and ten teams make it to Group Piece Finals. The Philly Pigeon made it to Group Piece Finals. We made it to the final round, finished fourth and got a trophy. (Note to all of the event organizers out there, people love trophies.)

While out in Oakland we filmed the 4th season of our 1 on 1 Street Slams. Watch our first Street Slam to see one of our winning group poems and a group poem from the Chicago Team.

If you want to make the team that is representing The Philly Pigeon at the National Poetry Slam in 2015 in Newark, New Jersey or hear great poetry come to our first Friday workshops and slams this  season. Our first slam of the season is Friday October 3rd.