The Knicks Poetry Slam is an innovative program which encourages New York City youth to express themselves through the written word and the hip medium of rap. The competitive process involves months of preparation, including an open audition, poetry slam workshops, preliminary slams and semi-finals.
The Spoken Word competition is open to any student between ages 13 and 20, and 150 of those performing at the Open Audition and College Fair are then invited back to free poetry workshop sessions. After a round of workshops and semi-final competitions 13 of the top poets are invited back to the finals.
This year the finals took place on February 24th, 2011 at the New Amsterdam Theatre where the 13 competed for grants to attend college and other prizes.
Several organizations support the Knicks Poetry Slam, which awards 450,000 dollars in scholarships, grants and prizes to the winners. The Hymowitz Children’s Educational Foundation, for which Gregg Hymowitz is a trustee, is one of those organizations.
