Local students, staff compete in National Poetry Slam Festival

Hundreds of spoken-word performers will be in Madison Aug. 3-9 for National Poetry Slam 2008. The poet-performers are members of some 75 teams that will compete at several downtown venues for a chance to advance to the finals showcase and competition at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 9, at the Overture Center for the Arts, 201 State St.

Two students in the University of Wisconsin-Madison's First Wave program are competing on teams. Sophomore Danez Smith is on the Madison team, and freshman Karl Iglesias is on the Milwaukee team.

Josh Healey, program director of UW-Madison's Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives (OMAI), will be part of a panel discussion on how to build/connect with the youth spoken-word movement and also will facilitate editing sessions. Healey is also a member of the Madison team, as is Eric Mata, a poet-mentor for First Wave and social justice education specialist at the Multicultural Student Center.