It’s been 20 years since Nancy Sullivan, a media specialist at Portland’s McDaniel High School, organized a poetry slam for students in the school’s library. That one slam eventually evolved into Verselandia, the citywide youth poetry competition now sponsored by Literary Arts. The slam allows students from across Portland to bring their original spoken word poetry to the stage of the Arlene Schitzer Concert Hall to be scored by a panel of judges. 

Alex Dang competed in the first Verselandia back in 2012. Qiana Woods won last year’s Verselandia and is set to compete again this year. They both join us, along with Sullivan, to talk about the history of the competition and the importance of slam poetry as a creative outlet.