National Federation Of State Poetry Societies Inc

LXCL:This Ticket is only for registered attendees at convention (includes BBP Slam registrants) to be a Form Slam participant. Please note that registrants need to register for convention or the SLAM prior to sending poems in to the Form Slam and All poems must be approved.

2026 BBP Form SLAM Registration

<p fr-original-style="text-align:center;margin:0px;width:100%;line-height:1.5;box-sizing:inherit;color:rgb(0, 0, 0);" style="text-align:center;margin:0px;width:100%;line-height:1.5;box-sizing:inherit;color:rgb(0, 0, 0);">NFSPS, Inc&nbsp;<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/hxn9dbuhd/image/upload/v1737133523/znyy0vipdfgubcwqjirt.png" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: calc(100% - 5px); position: relative; cursor: pointer; padding: 0px 1px; user-select: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Roboto; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.25px; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; width: 144px; display: inline-block; vertical-align: bottom; margin: 5px 0px 5px 5px; text-align: right; float: right;" fr-original-style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: calc(100% - 5px); position: relative; cursor: pointer; padding: 0px 1px; user-select: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Roboto; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.25px; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; width: 144px; display: inline-block; vertical-align: bottom; margin: 5px 0px 5px 5px; text-align: right; float: right;" fr-original-class="fr-draggable"> Advocacy! Activism! Community! July 23-26, 2026 Overland Park, KS &nbsp;🎉 Excitement is in the air! Get ready to be part of the second annual Form Slam at National Federation Of State Poetry Societies Inc&#39;s 65th Annual Convention and BlackBerry Peach National Poetry Slam.&nbsp;It&#39;s an event like no other, and we want your state to be reprresented in Overland Park, Kansas July 23-26, 2026! 🎉 Thank you for registering to compete in the Form Slam. You must be registered for the convention prior to making a submission to bbpformslam@gmail.com. The Form Slam is a poetry slam wherein every poem performed MUST BE a poetic form. No free verse is permitted.&nbsp; Registration is free, but we are accepting donations to augment the prize money. The donations received will be used to increase prize money and make it more likely we will be able to award runners-up. All competitors in The Form Slam will have up to 3 poems published by Buster Bodhi Press in the 2026 Form Slam Anthology. State poetry societies have an exclusive period to designate a representative. This period will run until April 15th. The designated poet must be registered to the convention before submitting poems for the competition. Once selected and registered, the poet representative may submit three to six poems to bbpformslam@gmail.com in a word doc with the heading &quot;2026 NFSPS Form Slam&quot;. Poems submitted by those unregistered or undesignated will be rejected. The poet should format their submission in the manner outlined in the Form Slam sample. After April 15th, the Form Slam competition will be open to all people registered to attend the convention, regardless of state designation. Again, please consider having your state poetry society donate funds to increase the prize money. Please use the donate button on Zeffy and specify &quot;The Form Slam&quot; on your donation.&nbsp; <figure fr-original-style="" style="width: 100%;"><a fr-original-style="text-decoration-color:initial;user-select:auto;box-sizing:inherit;" href="https://nfsps.net/nfsps-2025-enchanting-words-and-blackberry-peach-convention-schedule" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-color:initial;user-select:auto;box-sizing:inherit;" target="_blank">View the Convention Schedule&nbsp;</a></figure> <p fr-original-style="text-align:center;margin:0px;width:100%;line-height:1.5;box-sizing:inherit;color:rgb(0, 0, 0);" style="text-align:center;margin:0px;width:100%;line-height:1.5;box-sizing:inherit;color:rgb(0, 0, 0);"> &nbsp;&nbsp;

Hi <span contenteditable="false" data-custom-variable="{{firstname}}" fr-original-class="fr-deletable styled-tag-chip" fr-original-style="" style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(191, 191, 255); border-radius: 4px; color: rgb(42, 42, 196); padding: 1px 8px; font-size: 11px; display: inline-block; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: anywhere; user-select: none; box-sizing: inherit;">First name , Thank you for registering for the BlackBerry Peach Slam and the 65th Annual NFSPS Convention: Advocacy! Activism! Community! You will soon receive another email from Noir Jente to confirm your registration and provide more details. 🚀 Now that you have registered your designee note that this competition is limited to convention goers only. Poets designated by their state poetry society will get preferential entry into this competition. Ideally, every poet competing would represent a state poetry society.&nbsp; The 2nd annual BlackBerry Peach National Form Slam will take place during the 2026 Convention in Kansas City KS. Poems may be 3 minutes long or less (no line limit). Poems must be original work. No grace period. &nbsp;Poets will submit at least 3 and up to 6 poems in advance of the slam in order to ensure the work to be presented is indeed a generally acknowledged poetic form- NO FREE VERSE allowed.&nbsp; Poets cannot submit nonce forms, that is, they MAY NOT themselves generate a set of rules, write a poem that adheres to said rules, then use what they&rsquo;ve created as a &ldquo;Form Poem&rdquo; during this competition. Rather, all poems submitted, read, and performed must be authentic poetic forms as accepted by most literary circles and documented in publications such as Writers&rsquo; Digest or The New Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics by Lewis Turco. All poems must be the poet&rsquo;s own original work. Poets must document what form they are using in each poem submitted to be used in the competition. On each poem submitted, the poet must name the form or variant of the form being used for that poem, e.g. terza rima sonnet vs. Shakespearean sonnet. A &ldquo;Form Referee&rdquo; will allow or disallow the poems submitted in advance. The Form Referee will use the Lewis Turco book cited above (Third edition, &copy;2000) for reference. If the form is not named in the Turco book, the poet must provide a definition of the form and cite the source of the definition. The decision of the Form Referee is final. Examples of forms that may be used may include (but are not limited to) : Cinquain (chains allowed) &nbsp;Ghazal &nbsp;&nbsp;Haiku or Senryu (chains allowed) &nbsp;Kwansaba (chains allowed) &nbsp;Pantoum&nbsp;Sestina &nbsp;Sonnet (sequence/crowns/coronas allowed) &nbsp;Villanelle &nbsp; Send Form Slam submissions to bbpformslam@gmail.com .&nbsp;A 2026 Form Slam Submission Example will be sent to the registrant. All submissions should be sent as if ready for publication. &nbsp; Poets may perform from memory, from 8 x 11 or smaller plain white paper (written or typed), or a cellphone. Under normal circumstances, there will be no journals, books, laptops, tablets, or phablets allowed. No props of any kind allowed. Poets who require use of electronic devices that offer assistance for an impairment (visual or otherwise) may request permission to use them during the competition. This request should be made at the same time poems are submitted to the Form Referee. Permission will be granted on a case by case basis. &nbsp; Up to 16 Poets will compete. Poets will receive scores from 0.0 to 10.0. The first round all 16 poets will read via random draw. Top 8 scores advance.The second round will be clean slate, order will be high score to low score from round one. Top 4 scores advance. Last round will be clean slate with the order determined by random draw. Highest score in third round wins first place. In case of a tie in the last round, scores from the first two rounds will be added to the final round score, highest cumulative score will break the tie. &nbsp;The 2026 NFSPS Form Slam Champion will win at least $250.&nbsp; We welcome donations from state poetry societies and individuals and all funds received will go towards increasing the prizes for participants. When making a donation, please indicate &ldquo;For 2026 Form Slam&rdquo; with your donation. &nbsp;&nbsp; If you&#39;d like to get more involved, consider becoming a volunteer or sharing information about the convention with your friends! The entire schedule is dedicated to poetry and community, featuring workshops, contest awards, and guest speakers. If you have any questions about the convention, feel free to reach out to me. For questions about the Slam, please contact Noir Jente.&nbsp; Best regards, Julie Cummings &nbsp;admin@nfsps.net

NFSPS, Inc <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/hxn9dbuhd/image/upload/v1737133523/znyy0vipdfgubcwqjirt.png" style="box-sizing:inherit;position:relative;cursor:pointer;padding:0px 1px;user-select:none;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:0.25px;orphans:2;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;white-space:normal;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;width:144px;display:inline-block;vertical-align:bottom;margin:5px 0px 5px 5px;text-align:right;float:right;max-width:100%" /> Advocacy! Activism! Community! July 23-26, 2026 Overland Park, KS  🎉 Excitement is in the air! Get ready to be part of the second annual Form Slam at National Federation Of State Poetry Societies Inc's 65th Annual Convention and BlackBerry Peach National Poetry Slam. It's an event like no other, and we want your state to be reprresented in Overland Park, Kansas July 23-26, 2026! 🎉 Thank you for registering to compete in the Form Slam. You must be registered for the convention prior to making a submission to bbpformslam@gmail.com. The Form Slam is a poetry slam wherein every poem performed MUST BE a poetic form. No free verse is permitted.  Registration is free, but we are accepting donations to augment the prize money. The donations received will be used to increase prize money and make it more likely we will be able to award runners-up. All competitors in The Form Slam will have up to 3 poems published by Buster Bodhi Press in the 2026 Form Slam Anthology. State poetry societies have an exclusive period to designate a representative. This period will run until April 15th. The designated poet must be registered to the convention before submitting poems for the competition. Once selected and registered, the poet representative may submit three to six poems to bbpformslam@gmail.com in a word doc with the heading "2026 NFSPS Form Slam". Poems submitted by those unregistered or undesignated will be rejected. The poet should format their submission in the manner outlined in the Form Slam sample. After April 15th, the Form Slam competition will be open to all people registered to attend the convention, regardless of state designation. Again, please consider having your state poetry society donate funds to increase the prize money. Please use the donate button on Zeffy and specify "The Form Slam" on your donation.  <figure><a href="https://nfsps.net/nfsps-2025-enchanting-words-and-blackberry-peach-convention-schedule" target="_blank">View the Convention Schedule </a></figure>

National Federation Of State Poetry Societies Inc

2026 NFSPS BBP FORM SLAM Registration

10100 College Boulevard

2026 BBP Form SLAM Registration

Free

Add a donation