Slam Nation: The Sport of Spoken Word (1998)

An inside look at the American performance poetry competition the National Poetry Slam, filmed during the course of the 1996 event in Portland, Oregon. The literary equivalent of an Olympic diving competition or the Eurovision Song Contest, the Slam sees a poet read out a poem lasting no more than three minutes and a panel of judges award the poet a score from 0 to 10. The film looks at both the boisterously competitive nature of the performances onstage, and the more contemplative and philosophical side of the performers offstage.