Open Slams have three rounds: 8 poets in the 1st, top 5 scorers moving on to the 2nd, and the top 3 moving to the 3rd. Third round poets get points, 1st (3pts) 2nd (2pts) and 3rd (1pt) towards the Semi-Finals. Anyone can sign up.

Jason Bayani is a Filipino poet from the Bay Area. A graduate of San Francisco State University, where he majored in creative writing and theatre arts, Jason immersed himself in the highly-regarded Bay Area spoken word scene. After spending several years in the scene, Jason made a name for himself with his highly impassioned and gritty work earning a place on five different national poetry slam teams and taking the SF/Berkeley Grand Slam championship in 2003.

Jason is also a co-founder of the Asian American spoken word collective, Proletariat Bronze, and is an active member and supporter of the arts in his community. He has been published in Ratapallax for their special feature “Young Pilipino Americans,” twice in The National Poetry Slam Anthology, and in the longstanding UC Berkeley Filipino literary magazine Maganda. He currently works as a youth counselor in San Francisco and continues to perform across the country.

He is currently working towards his MFA at St. Mary’s College in Moraga.