ASU’s first-ever official poetry team, Sun Devil Slam, is looking for new members this Thursday at its first poetry slam event.

Once the Sun Devil Slam team members are selected, the club will compete at the Association of College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational this spring. The event at Mill Avenue’s MADCAP Theater will feature Alvin Lau of HBO’s “Def Poetry Jam” television show.

This will mark the first time ASU has ever sent a slam team to participate in the competition.

Creative writing junior Myrlin Hepworth, president of Sun Devil Slam, said he is looking for four or five of ASU’s best poets to create the group.

“It will be interesting to see the kids who come out from ASU,” he said. “There’s going to be a lot of great minds and writers who are just untapped.”

Jason Meier, assistant director of Student Involvement at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, who is the team leader for the invitational, said the team that wins the slam goes home with bragging rights about being the best in the nation.

“Last year was our largest one ever,” Meier said. “We had 32 teams registered to compete. I think the year prior to that was 25.”
Criminal justice and criminology junior Nancy Soto said she might participate in the group’s first event.

“I think having a poetry team is a great idea because students get to express themselves in a manner that they feel good about,” Soto said.
Hepworth added that there is no particular type of talent required to become a member of Sun Devil Slam.

“In order to make the team you have to show up and slam and do well over the evening,” Hepworth said. “Then what we have is called a slam off and the top four of those poets get to be on the team.”

Hepworth said there is a three-minute time limit for poems read aloud at the slam or there may be score deductions.

Black Pearl Poetry, an Arizona-based poetry company and sponsor of Thursday’s event, will also be hosting slams every Thursday this semester in Tempe and every Friday at Fair Trade Café near the Downtown campus.

Ed Mabrey, CEO of Black Pearl Poetry and 2007 champion of the Individual World Poetry Slam, said the goal of the weekly slams is to promote community building, art expression and stimulate positive expression for students.

“People should come and be prepared and have a really good time,” Mabrey said. “We just want the place to be as packed as possible.”

Reach the reporter at devin.creer@asu.edu.