Van Slam Team Play-offs: Standings & Scores for 2008-09

[Chris Gilpin]

The regular season has started. Each year from September to March, the open poetry slams on the 1st, 3rd and potentially 5th Monday of every month become the testing ground for poets looking to make next year's Van Slam Poetry Team.

Winning poets assure themselves a place in the play-offs (which start in April 2009). Second and third place poets are ranked according to their scores.

For more on the ranking system, check out the Rules section of the website:

http://vancouverpoetryhouse.com/programs/vanslam/rules/

This thread will be updated with the scores from each bout, along with the standings of the poets who are in the running to qualify for the play-offs in April. The top 16 ranking poets will make the play-offs.

Good luck to all the poets!

[Chris Gilpin]

The first number shows the order that poets performed in the first round. After their name is the first round score. After that is the position that they performed in the second round. Then their second round score, and finally their total score for the evening.

Sept 1 2008    

1    Sasha Langford    25.3                   
   
 2    Jenny    25.8                   
   
 3    RC Weslowski    28.5    5    29.2    57.7    
   
 4    Steve    26                   

 5    Father Goose    28.7    6    28.4    57.1    
   
 6    Spillious    26.3                   
   
 7    Relevant    28.1    2    27.3    55.4    
   
 8    CR Avery    26.8    1    28.6    55.4    

 9    Scruffmouth    27.9    4    28.7    56.6    
   
 10    Shannon Rayne    26.8    3    26.9    53.7    
   
 11    Matt Hogan    24.2                   
   
 12    Duncan Shields    26.6                   
   
Qualifying

First Place finishes
RC Weslowski   57.7

Second Place finishes
Father Goose  57.1

Third Place finishes
Scruffmouth  56.6

[Chris Gilpin]

Hey, I wasn't at last night's slam, but the rumour on the mobile phone text circuit is that Lisa Slater kicked some serious butt. I'll post the scores as soon as I have them.

[Chris Gilpin]

The first number shows the order that poets performed in the first round. After their name is the first round score. After that is the position that they performed in the second round. Then their second round score, and finally their total score for the evening.

Sept 29 2008     

1     Spillious     29     1     26.2     55.2 Fourth!
     
2    Duncan Shields    28.3    2    26.6    54.9 Fifth!
     
3    Johnny McCrae    27.4              
     
4    Tim Slum    22.6    
   
5    Lisa Slater    29.8    3    29.2    59 First!

6    Sean McGarragle    26.1              
 
7    Ed Word    28    4    30    58 Second!

8    Kelda Larson    24.4    
          
9    Dan    23.6    
          
10    Richard Lett    26.7    
          
11    Omarie    27.9    5    28.2    56.1 Third!

 12    Geraline Webster    26.3

Qualifying for the 2008-09 Van Slam Poetry Team Play-offs

First Place finishers
Lisa Slater 59.0
RC Weslowski   57.7

Second Place finishers
Ed Word 58.0
Father Goose  57.1

Third Place finishers
Scruffmouth  56.6
Omarie 56.1

[RCW]

The scores were high throughout the night...the judges were digging it.  Trevor did a great job in the shotgun slot in the first round and had all the others keeping up with him.

Lisa was dynamite.  2 new poems for the highest score at a slam in a long time.  And while the points are not the point it is nice to have the judges pay attention to the quieter poems as well and be keen on rewarding them...at least last night.  Duncan Shields would be another example.

There were good poems where lines were dropped but the crowd encouraged the poets to keep at it and finish through...Tim Slum did a poem about roofing and drinking that I liked that fell into this category.  Once he gets it off page and solidly in his memory it should come together nicely.

I think at least 5 of the poets were competing for the first time in the regular slam...and another 2 or 3 who have only been out a couple of time.  Plus a few vets thrown into the mix as well.

The crowd wasn't as rah-rah as it usually is but I thought most of the poets did a good job connecting.

A nice human moment was when one of the open mic poets, Chris Rice, lost his poem and couldn't find it, he tried to improvise but couldn't, yet the crowd urged him on.  He then gave up but I said if he found it before I finished introducing the judges and announcing the rules he could read it.  HE DID FIND IT!  He got up on stage and the crowd roared their approval and he gave a tender reading of a pretty heartfelt poem.  It was sweetness.

 

[Chris Gilpin]

The first number shows the order that poets performed in the first round. After their name is the first round score. After that is the position that they performed in the second round. Then their second round score, and finally their total score for the evening.

Oct 6 2008    

1    Warren    24.1         
2    Relevant    27.6    5    28    55.6 Fourth!
3    Scruffmouth    25.8              
4    Jeff Huffman    23.9    
5    Lucia    28.5    4    29    57.5 Second!
6    Clint    26.7              
7    Svelt    26.6              
8    Farrida    27.2    2    28.8    56 Third!
9    Evil    25.1              
10    Steve    26.7              
11    Lisa    28    1    26.4    54.4 Fifth!
12    Sasha    29.4    3    28.9    58.3 First!


Standings for the 2008-09 Van Slam Poetry Team Play-offs
The top 16 poets qualify for semi-finals

First Place finishers
Lisa Slater 59.0
Sasha Langford 58.3
RC Weslowski   57.7

Second Place finishers
Ed Word 58.0
Lucia 57.5
Clint "Father Goose" Wilson  57.1

Third Place finishers
Scruffmouth  56.6
Omarie 56.1
Farrida 56

[ms_spelt]

I have a delicate question to ask,but i feel it must be raised.
as lucia took the stage in round one,the table of judges that she was sitting with yelled out "that's my girl!" before she had even taken fully to the stage.when she was done and the scores went up she received a 10 from that table of judges-they handed out no other ten all night.I pointed this out to our slammaster, sean mcgarragle ,and he assured me he had noticed it and it was a concern  for him as well and that he had spoken to our host,spillious, and that they would take steps to adress it.
and now I see that she has placed second-this qualifies her for the playoffs,in all likelihood ,and it also gives her a solid leg up in qualifying for the wowps playoffs as well.
so my question is this-what,if any,steps were taken to adress this instance?
it affects not only the integrity of the bout but of the entire selection process for both team playoffs and wowps.
let me be clear that i am not alleging that judge tampering occurred intentionally.
what i am saying is that the table in question should not have been allowed to judge with such an obvious undue bias-we, in fact, have a decade long practice of prohibting such conflicts of interests.
nor am i necessarrily pointing a finger at trev-he did a great job as host-as he regularly does-and judge selection is always a difficult thing,and something that the mc/bout manager workshop is definitely going to cover to hopefully prevent stuff like this down the road.
what i am saying is that it happened,and it unfairly influenced the outcome of the bout.myself and the slammaster and the host all saw it.
so i think it's fair to ask-what are we going to do about it?

 

[Shannon]

I think the person finding judges should do their best to find judges not biased by one candidate, but many judges will be biased in other ways anyways.

As long as they do their best and continue to drop the high score and the low score I am satisfied.

I once competed in a finals competition where all of the women audience members were not allowed to be judges because they had some knowledge of some of the performers resulting in 5 male judges that were under the age of 25.  This was unfair as well.

[Sean]

After dwelling on this matter for the past week and speaking with my fellow slammaster and our host here's my ruling in lieu of a bout manager/rules committee.

Lucia will not be punished in any way, shape or form. Once Angus and Lisa create and hopefully pass a document creating a bout manager and rules committee it will not fall squarely into my hands. For now it does and my decision to NOT punish our young slammer is because

a) she is not in control of whom the host picks for judging

and

b) she did nothing untoward ie: misleading the host in any way

It is the host and beyond him or herself the slammaster present to present a show that is as fair as possible for all competitors. In general, I believe we do this very well. We must merely remind ourselves of the various tasks that go into making a show fair and well received and adhere to them. I am sure that the host from last week and myself will be more vigilant in that matter.

[Father Goose]

Hmmm, I find the judging to be somehow unfair every time I go up. For example, how come no one ever seems to recognize how brilliant I am besides the crowd? Okay that was totally said with tongue in cheek (that's why I sprayed spit all over my monitor as I said it) but seriously, I think there will always be some bias regarding the judging. Lookit every time RC goes up, the crowd reaction alone kind of lets anyone who is judging know (if they don't already know) that, hey, this guy is somebody special. And the same goes for a new poet trying to carve their mark into the scene. When a newby takes the stage to a light smattering of applause I can't help but think, boy oh boy this guy/gal better pull something big outta the hat 'cause they're already half defeated before they utter a word. I guess what I am trying to say is, we need judges from other countries who know nobody, sitting in soundproof booths, hearing only the slammer... and maybe they could be blinded as well, that way Spelt's Green Lantern belt buckle won't win/lose him any more points. Would this be considered rambling yet.....?

[sue]

I have always wanted to find a judge who does not understand a word of English. It would be good to see what we (as competing poets) could do just with someone who doesn't understand the text, and receives only the sound and feeling of the piece.

[RCW]

I have asked several people in the last few slams that I have hosted who do not speak English as a first language to be a judge and most of them have declined because they didn't feel they would do a good job.  Even though I encouraged them to do so.

There was one fellow who is from the Ukraine who agreed to be a judge.  He's been back a few times.

[ms_spelt]

some agreements and disagreements

i agree-lucia didn't intentionally violate ethics or rules.

but...
a breach of the integrity of the process occurred.a table full of judges,sitting with and loudly rooting for one of the poets was not recused from judging.not during the judge selction.not even after we saw what was happening.the slamamster and the host saw it and let it happen.they didn't swap out the judges for the second round.they let the scores stand.sean assurred me he was aware of it and it would be adressed and now the manner it which it has been adressed is to admit it was wrong but assess no penalty to balance the scales.


now i disagree with this as a means of "dealing with it"

every poet in that slam is punished by this approach-despite abiding by the rules and the ethics of judge selection-in the name of not punishing a poet who didn't intentionally mean to break the rules.

at an PSI tournament (or on a rules committe that i was chair of) we'd have approached this an instance of unintentional infraction.intentional infractions-also known as cheating-are usually dealt with by disqualification.I admitted at the outset-and it seems we are all in agreement that this was not a case of intentional infraction.

but it was an infraction-and it needs to be adressed.
so what to do?well, at PSI tourney's unintentional infractions are 2 point deductions.
and i'd be willing to go further in this case and reduce that to a one point deduction.
and i'd allow her to keep her prize money as i'm more concerned with the integrity of the selection process than a few bucks here or there.
a one point deduction removes here from the 2cnd place bracket.thus removing the problem of a potential playoff contestant implicated in any way with tainted judging.and it handicaps her in the wowps standings without hobbling her unduly.
it recognizes that no harm was intended,but adresses the harm that was done nevertheless.
and attempts in a meaningful way to adress and balance that harm.
that would have been my suggestion to a rules committee i was chairing and it's my suggestion to our esteemed slammasters in this case.
but for our disagreements on this case i must agree that without a rules commitee empowerd to ensure the integrity of the slams and the process by which we select teams,it falls to the slammasters.
and if they wish to allow someone with a table of judges loudly campaigning for them, to enter the playoffs, that's their call.i disagree with that call,but it's thier call.
i urge them to reconsider and i urge us all to take the creation of a rules committee with some seriousness so that we have a procedure and body in place to handle and hopefully even prevent such things in the future.


.

[Lisa]

I wanted to provide a fuller clarification of the decision that Sean and I made about how to deal with this particular situation, where one group of judges (representing one out of five scores) was definitely affiliated with one of the poets.

For me, there are three questions that factor into a decision like this one. 1) What is fair? 2) What promotes community spirit, friendly competition and all-around positive good energy at the show? 3) What will make this competitor (who is young, new to Vancouver, and talented) continue to come out and participate at the slam, thereby enriching and diversifying our scene?

First of all, securing unbiased judges is the job of the host. Usually, we assume that if we (as regular attendees of the Van Slam) don't recognize a group of people, they are probably new and therefore neutral. Moving forward, it will be important to make sure that we ask all potential judges if they are affiliated with any of the poets, came to see anyone special tonight, etc etc. I know that Sean and Trevor (who was the host for that night) have already discussed this, and Sean and I agree that this situation has made it even more clear that we need a rules committee/a body to provide guidance on these types of decisions. We need educated and fully-informed hosts.

In a tournament, the stakes are high. In a playoff, the stakes are high. While I agree that the selection of these particular judges might have slightly swayed Lucia's scores, her highest score will always get dropped. All of her scores for the rounds were above 9, from all of the judges. This particular table was certainly not wildly out of whack with what the rest of the judges were scoring her.

So, knowing that it wasn't Lucia's screwup, in the spirit of friendly competition and flexibility and all of that, Sean and I decided that we would prioritize a good show, characterized by friendly and amiable competition (which it was), and welcoming a new poet into the community (which we did, and which would have been a bit less welcoming if at her first slam we reneged her second place rank and docked her points, essentially accusing her of doing something wrong).

If anyone has further questions about what goes into a decision like this (right now, pending the formation of a rules committee), please feel free to respond here or to backchannel me by email.

[RCW]

Whatever the decision, I REALLY appreciate clear communication as to how the process is/was done.  Thank you for following up on this Lisa.