Check out this ‘poetry of the people’

When asked to think of a poet, many minds often wander to brooding artists tucked away at home, weaving words of melancholy onto crumpled and creased paper.

But at BNA Brewing’s Tasting Room, finger snaps and raucous cheers followed the poems of artists that took to the stage and performed spoken word poetry.

This was a slam poetry event that wasn’t always as popular as it is now.

In 2009, a pop-up open mic was founded, called the Inspired Word Café.

Thirteen years later, executive director Cole Mash said they’re selling out venues and attracting more and more people every event.

“We do our team slam every year,” Mash told Kelowna10. “Poetry slam is typically an individual poetry competition, but tonight we have two teams of poets.”

The teams were themed under the genres of fantasy and sci-fi, with competitors first performing individual poems, and then team poems through the different rounds.

In order to get the crowd engaged with the event, they employ a unique judging system.

“A big part of slam poetry is that we pick random judges out of the crowd, and so the audience gets to be a big part of the success or failure of each poet that goes up there,” Mash explained. “It's a little more interactive than what you might expect from a poetry event.”

Judges were told to rank the poems by how much it moved or resonated with them, from one to ten, decimals included.

Mash said poetry, especially ‘page poetry’ can be a bit exclusive, likening it to a riddle that not everyone is in on.

But that’s not the case at slam poetry events.

“At the heart of spoken word is, that it's a little more accessible to the everyday person,” Mash said. ”Spoken word is the poetry of the people.”