Competing Poets: Spittoon and BLK GEN Bring Grand Slam to Yue Space, Jun 3

On Jun 3, some of Beijing's most enthused scribes will go word-to-word at Yue Space for a rhyming, verbose standoff for the ages as part of the Beijing Underground Summer Music Days events series. On Sunday, the hutong livehouse will host Grand Slam, which is touted as a one of a kind English language poetry competition and showcase for Mandarin rhyme and verse by coordinators Spittoon and BLK GEN.

Aside from a handful of poets competing in English – each of whom is barred from reading their lines from pages or screens and must instead recite their performance from memory – the promoters seem all the more excited by a roster of Chinese performers who will recite their Mandarin verses.

It's the latest, and perhaps most outside of the box event put on by literary collective Spittoon so far, which has made a name for itself with other poetry and short story themed events, not to mention its publication of anthologies. Recent events have included a book talk by Chinese author Sheng Keyi at their monthly book club haunt The Great Outdoors, launches for their literary magazine, and regular writer workshops. BLK GEN, meanwhile, is a Beijing-based group that celebrates the African diaspora in China through fine arts, performance arts, literary, and multimedia events. They have held slam poetry nights at The Bookworm, and its founders Leroy Adams and Nayyir Shareef (the latter of whom is pictured in the lead image above at an earlier poetry slam) have partaken in high-profile talks like the Africa 2.0 dialogue back in February.

This is the first time that both groups have teamed up, though after brief consideration their partnership makes perfect sense because of their mutual dedication to the arts and underrepresented voices. That and, of course, their love of strong writing and impassioned performance.

For more information about Sunday's event, check out Spittoon's official WeChat announcement here. You can also read about the full list of activities that make up this year's Beijing Underground Summer Music Days here.

Images: Courtesy of BLK GEN