As the names of the nine poets competing for spots on the Brandeis slam team were announced in the Castle Commons on Tuesday night, the final Brandeis Open Mic Series competition began. I was instantly reminded of one of my best encounters with slam poetry in my university career. At my New Student Orientation in 2009, during a program about diversity, a young man stood up in one of the last rows of Spingold Theater Center and interrupted the staff member who had been lecturing the unresponsive, over-programmed crowd of wide-eyed first-years and their upperclassmen leaders.

The young man recited a poem in which he spoke about being associated with terrorism due to the color of his skin and the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001.

It was a moving and bold moment, staged to seem as though he had spontaneously felt a need to contribute to the discussion and had, on the spot, come up with these brilliant lines. The poet in the last row who spoke so beautifully that day was Usman Hameedi '12.

Partially because of this performance during my first week at Brandeis, and also because of the omnipresence of Hameedi's poetry at a variety of campus events, I arrived at Tuesday's competition with 30 or so other eager spectators ready for a captivating slam performance.

Many of these audience members had gathered throughout the fall semester, supporting their favorite poets as they read new pieces and received feedback from the crowd. Only five could go on to make the VOCAL team, Brandeis' competitive spoken word and activism group.

Everyone was expecting to hear great poetry, find out who would make the final team and see some familiar talented faces. But it turned out that slams are much more complicated and regulated than that. In contrast with the delicate nature of the poets' metaphors, the competition was fierce.

The founder of B.O.M.S. and VOCAL, Jason Simon-Bierenbaum '11, stepped forward and explained the rules of the game. A slam always opens with the "sacrificial poet," a student who is not participating in the slam and who volunteers to read one of his or her poems to set the bar for the rest of the competition. Every poet who follows is then rated according to whether their poem was better or worse than that of the sacrificial poet.

Judges, in B.O.M.S. fashion, are chosen at the start of the night of the competition. "We try for people who don't know anyone who's slamming or at least aren't friends with them. . It's sometimes hard; . we've, in the past, had to run around the Castle looking for sophomores and knocking on doors," Kori Perten '13, the night's sacrificial poet, told me.

Within the competition, there is a lot of strategy that comes into play. Hameedi explained his personal process for trying to make the team, influenced by the order in which the poets perform. Hameedi, who performed third on Tuesday, told me,"I knew my first poem had to be loud and performance-y. So that's why I picked 'Science Chick,' 'cause I knew it was going to be funny. And the funny card . it's really hard to play, 'cause at the wrong moment it's not gonna go over." Hameedi's timing paid off as he began with a rousing, "I love science! But even more, I love women."

He scored the second highest in the first round, after Jordan Hinahara '12, whose intimate poems throughout the evening brought tears to her eyes and touched everyone in the room. One of Hinahara's best and most poignant poems was about the loss of a childhood friend. "She drew thoughts across outer space, with wing-tipped elbows," Hinahara told the enrapt listeners, in a voice that practically forced intimacy and connection, "The same elbows that steered her from tree-fort falls to soccer balls, and I wonder if she rests with them tucked in close like they know how precious her heart is."

The rounds continued, with the lowest-scoring poet eliminated at the end of each one. In this particular slam, because of the high skill level of all the poets competing, the rounds played out a little differently. After the second bout of performances, there was a three-way tie between Rawda Aljawhary '12, Rachel Downs '13 and Rachel Parkin '12. All three poets were allowed to continue onto the next round. Parkin shortly after withdrew herself from the competition, and Downs, after reciting a crowd-pleasing piece on the pros and cons of the Twilight series, was eliminated for exceeding the 3-minute time limit on all performances.

At the end of the night, only five poets' scores qualified them to compete on the final team: Aljawhary, Hameedi, Hinahara, Sara "Kass" Levy '12 and Ashley Lynette '13. Hameedi will coach the team in preparation for Nationals, which will take place in April. "I've been observing our team for 3 years now-our positives and our negatives-and I'm really trying to hone in on and help us improve on things that have hurt us," he said. "It's gonna take a lot of work, . but it's going to be fun."

The team started in 2008 when Simon-Bierenbaum decided it was time to clear the throats of several Brandeis voices.

"Everyone outside of me, who made it [onto the VOCAL team] the first year, had never slammed before," Simon-Bierenbaum said. "This was their first experience, and I made sure I brought diverse features to make sure they'd be exposed to a variety of [styles]. I made sure that . people would be encouraged to share. . It's all family, it's all about trying to get better."

It was noticeable from the way that each poet snapped encouragingly when someone would lose his or her place on the page, prodding the performer to move forward undeterred, that everyone on the team felt connected and supported. It was evident in the way that the team discretely celebrated its success and congratulated those who didn't make the cut, and also from the dedication of the individuals, performers and audience members, who showed up twice a month and in the end just couldn't stay away.

"I can't stress enough how much of this is because of Jason," Hameedi praised his friend and mentor. "He's a crazy performer. He came to Brandeis with a vision and he . is a major part of why this [endeavor] is so successful.