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.

Karen Finneyfrock is a writer and teaching artist living in Seattle, WA. As a member of three National Poetry Slam Teams, Karen was published in two poetry slam anthologies created by Poetry Slam Inc. and honored as a “Legend” at the National Poetry Slam in Austin, 2006. She has toured nationally as a Spoken Word Artist and authored one full-length book of poems titled “Welcome to the Butterfly House” (en theos press, 2004). Her new chapbook is called, “When the Squirrels Came for Her, She was Already Dressed and Waiting.”

A recent alumna of Hedgebrook writers’ colony, Karen’s recently completed book of young adult fiction is titled “Celia, the Dark and Weird.” She is a Writer-in-Residence at Richard Hugo House in Seattle and her new book of poems is forthcoming from Write Bloody Press in February, 2010.

“Karen Finneyfrock is a rare example of a slam poet who writes excellent poetry,” ~ Paul Constant, The Stranger.

Karen Finneyfrock contributed a poem titled “Newer Colossus.” I’ll remember that night not for the soup or song but as the first time I heard that poem. The poets of 1968, mostly now demised, would have loved it, this evidence that their legacy is alive. ~ Regina Hackett, Art Critic Seattle Post Intelligencer

Links:

Karen’s Interview on KUOW “The Poetics of Great Lyrics”

Seattle Magazine Article “Queen of the Spoken Word”