UNM is hosting the Collegiate National Poetry Slam for the first time.
Twenty-four college slam teams will compete individually and in groups for a gold medal between today and Saturday.
This year's UNM slam team includes Damien Flores, Aaron Cuffee, Lee Francis and Jessica Lopez.
Last year, the UNM team took second when the competition was held at the University of Michigan.
The University of Pennsylvania took first place.
"U-Penn and UNM have always finished side by side every year - U-Penn had a hungry, hungry team," Cuffee said. "National slam events like this provide
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a great opportunity to see work that's really exceptional and really unique, especially with a team event where there's always a lot of group work, which is really rare to see at most poetry slams or poetry performances in general."
He said the national factor should motivate people to attend the performances.
"At a certain point, local poetry slam can get blasé," Cuffee said. "People feel like they've seen everything. And a big, national gathering slam like this is a guarantee that you're going to see something new."
Flores said the UNM team will perform a group poem commenting on homelessness in Albuquerque, based on an incident he witnessed at Frontier Restaurant.
"A homeless man was being berated by what looked like high school students - a Native American - just making fun of him," he said. "They told him they'd give him 10 bucks if he did an eagle dance in the middle of the restaurant, and the man did it. And then the kids just had a great laugh at it, and the man was kicked out."
They're also working on a group piece about political beliefs. Francis's grandfather was the lieutenant governor of New Mexico in the '70s.
"His grandfather was a very conservative Republican," Flores said. "Lee was fairly liberal but loved his grandpa no matter what, and his grandpa loved him. Your politics don't matter. We're all human. We all have our families, and we have something that makes us uniquely human."
Esme Vaandrager was on the Albuquerque Slam Team from 2004-06 but has been attending Hampshire College in Massachusetts this year. She'll return to Albuquerque to perform on the Hampshire team.
She said it won't be weird competing against her hometown poet friends.
"I'm just really happy to get to see them and be with them, because they are my second family," she said. "So, I'm not out for blood."
She'll be competing with a poem about college parties and questioning the point of them.
"But my ideal poem - if I hadn't been at college and doing activist work - I'd probably write a poem about the fact that I'm returning to my poetry family here and just about my experience of being away and the identity shift that happens when I'm way more aware of my Latinaness being at a school that's 90 percent white."
The preliminary rounds for all schools are held today and Thursday at the SUB Ballroom, Higher Grounds and the Southwest Film Center. Competitions are at 3 and 5 p.m.
The National Hispanic Cultural Center will host a semi-final round at 6 and 8 p.m. Friday.
These events are free.
The final competition between four schools will be at El Rey Theatre on Saturday at 7 p.m. It is $7 for students and $10 for the public.
"There's an after party as well with a bunch of bands playing and some poets performing," Flores said. "That's with a $5 donation to the Golden West."
