All-Stars of Slam at Green Valley Ranch... Las Vegas poetry at its best...

Guest blogger Rj Reynolds talks about the All-Stars of Slam poetry event and why you should support local poetry!

Here's the deal. I don't usually promote events that have a cover charge on principle. I figure that sentiment shows my age, but I have felt this way since I first started writing and performing poetry. You map out a living thing on paper, and in performance you become so much more than the words. You create a moment for everyone present.

And how the heck can anyone charge for that? If we didn't have a venue, poets would stand around outside and swap poems (as would any other artist, and we all do). Talky Trees operates on that truth. So maybe the question becomes, how do you charge for art at all?

Working with the Las Vegas Poets Organization this past year, I see how far this conundrum will follow artists through life. To date, I do not remember any promotion from LVPO that wasn't also free, from readings like Word Up! and Human Experience to larger cooperative efforts like the Vegas Valley Book Festival in November. The Arts Factory has also done its part to keep free, local poetry alive with the Saturday night Painters' and Poets' Jam.

However, The All-Stars of Slam show at Green Valley Ranch on Tues. Dec. 6th represents the next step in a true respect and spectacle of poetry in Las Vegas. Page and performance poets alike will see an actual market for features in similar venues (and larger). More locals will be exposed to the voice of their city, and this will also attract out-of-town visitors who can be adequately compensated for their craft.

"ASOS will be the kind of event that's setting the precedent for a new wave of homegrown Las Vegas cultural events," said Jeff Grindley, president of the Las Vegas Poets Organization, "Supporting ASOS and events like it help reframe the way the community and the country look at Las Vegas. "

And don't look at it as just slam or open-mic, either. Nevada has a wildly rich scope of poetic styles, many of which populate Clark County. Who knows? Within the next year, Las Vegas poets could be seeing a regular cowboy poetry night right by UNLV.

So as poets (and artists, and people), we may not like thinking about the bottom line, but it inevitably rises with us in some capacity. For the Las Vegas Poets Organization, that will never include a profit. If you buy a ticket to this show, you raise a red flag to Vegas that its poets have a lot to say. More importantly, you'll prove that the country should be listening for it as the instrument of social change.

For more information about the All-Stars of Slam show, visit the event page:

http://www.facebook.com/events/254881227901956/

To learn more about the Las Vegas Poets Organization, visit http://www.lasvegaspoets.org/

Nevada Public Radio

For more information on the Cultural Arts in Las Vegas please visit Nevada Public Radio. NPR has detailed listings of many cultural and civic events hosted by area non-profits click on this linkhttp://www.knpr.org/common/psa/listNEW.cfm and if you are planning an event in the next few months, be sure to get your free listing in Nevada Public Radio's Desert Companion magazine by submitting the information here at http://www.knpr.org/culture/eventaddnew.cfm

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