For schedule details, please visit the National Poetry Slam website . 

"From August 7-11, more than 300 competitors, from 75 teams representing cities across North America, will converge on Austin to compete for performance poetry's ultimate prize.

The rules of poetry slam are simple yet open up an array of artistic possibilties: A poet gets three minutes to perform one of his or her original poems. No props or costumes are allowed. Poems are given numerical scores by audience members who serve as judges.

At the National Poetry Slam, teams form through competitions held in their individual cities, and the poets practice tirelessly for months for only a few minutes on stage.

Once the competition starts, the field of 75 is winnowed to 25 via three nights of preliminary bouts at venues throughout downtown and South Congress. Then, it's a winner-take-all set of bouts Friday night. From there, five teams are left standing for one final battle at the Paramount Theater on the final night of competition.

Attend the National Poetry Slam, and you'll see heartbreaking work, hilarious routines, rants, impeccably-timed and choreographed ensemble pieces, and transcendent moments in which one poet and a microphone can place familiar things and universal truths into arresting new revelations.

It's the National Poetry Slam, where Anything Can Happen In 3 Minutes."