POETRY SLAM WITH META SARMIENTO

Slam poetry is a spoken-word form of poetry that is largely influenced by the free verse and musical style of Beat poets like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. Slam poetry is designed to trigger emotional responses from a live audience and that is exactly what happens at The Temporary's slams. In this slam, a winner will be chosen by a panel of judges including the accomplished poet Meta Sarmiento. Poets interested in participating in the Slam should contact Alya Howe in advance of the event at alyahowe@me.com. Meta Sarmiento is a Filipino poet and rapper from Guam. He competed in his first poetry slam in 2007 in a time when there were no youth and adult divisions, just a free-for all among all ages. He consistently placed in the top three and chose to commit fully to the art of spoken word. He is the former Executive Director of Guam's spoken word arts education program and coached two of Guam's youth poetry teams to the semi-final rounds of the world's largest international youth poetry festival: Brave New Voices, as seen on HBO. In the summer of 2016, Meta relocated to Denver, CO. Since then he's become an Honorable Mention for the Loft Spoken Word Immersion Fellowship (2018), a National Poetry Slam Semifinalist with Slam Nuba (2017), and a TEDx speaker. In 2015, Meta was selected as a winner of Spoken Word for the World where he was flown to Paris, France to perform environmental poetry at the United Nations Climate Negotiations. Meta is also a respected MC and is a three-time semifinalist for TeamBackPack, one of the world's premiere platforms for Underground Hip-Hop artists. His most recent book of poems, Tie Your Shoes Kid, explores themes of family, cultural identity, love, loss, and healing.