Spoken Word Poetry Competition: What It Is, Where It’s Run and How It’s Judged

An original poem written to be performed aloud: in the one eTalenter template that carries it, a Visayan/Cebuano piece by a girl at the Cadet level on a topic drawn on the day, marked out of 100 with 40 for the message.

Spoken Word Poetry is poetry made for the voice. The performer writes the piece herself, learns it by heart and delivers it to a room, so the words, the rhythm and the way they are spoken are all hers. In the provincial scouting talent contest for registered girl scouts in Bohol that carries it in eTalenter, the class belongs to the Cadet level and is spoken in Visayan (Cebuano), the everyday language of the province, which means the piece is written and judged in the language the audience actually speaks at home.

What sets the class apart from a recitation is where the material comes from. The rules describe an original piece on a topic that is drawn from a bowl, so a contestant cannot walk in with a single prepared poem and simply perform it. She has to arrive with the craft of building a short, memorable piece around whatever topic she draws, and with enough written material and nerve to shape it for the topic of the day. That is a different skill from reading well, and it is why the panel gives the largest share of the marks to what the poem says rather than how loudly it is said.

A round is short and plain. One contestant performs alone; the rules in eTalenter print no props, partner or accompaniment for the class, so the safe assumption is the voice alone. The template sets a five-minute maximum, because the printed rules give a window of three to five minutes, and the rules also carry a deduction for running over time. The rules do not print the size of that deduction, so the template does not apply one; the coordinator has to add it to the registration rules before the day if it is to be used.

The class is the Cadet level’s spoken piece. In the same programme the Cadet level also has a girls’ singing choir, while the other levels have vocal solos and duets, on-the-spot drawing and painting, an English essay, a declamation and a Tagalog poem. Each contestant may enter one category only at a level, so a Cadet who chooses Spoken Word Poetry gives up the choir for that edition.

Where Spoken Word Poetry is run

The title appears in one eTalenter template, a provincial talent contest for registered girl scouts in Bohol, in the Philippines, where it is a Cadet-level Visayan/Cebuano class open to girls only and entered by individuals. Spoken word and slam-style poetry is a widely recognised form in school language programmes, youth festivals and arts centres in many countries, and eTalenter carries separate pages for the team, solo and village-festival versions of it, but this page does not describe any other event as running a class called Spoken Word Poetry.

• Philippines (Bohol)

Key facts

• An Individual item in the one template that carries it, open to girls only
• Run at the Cadet level only, which the printed five-level ladder (Twinkler, Star, Junior, Cadet, Senior) places between Junior and Senior
• Language is Visayan (Cebuano), which the platform has no entry for, so the template uses Any/NA and the rules name the language
• The piece is original and its topic is drawn from a bowl on the day, so it cannot be a single fully fixed poem
• Marked out of 100 in five headings: Message/Content 40, Delivery and Performance 30, Voice Variation and Projection 15, Memorization 10, Audience Impact 5
• The rules give three to five minutes and a timing deduction; the template sets five minutes as the maximum and leaves the deduction to the coordinator, and the Cadet age band (13 to 15) is a placeholder the coordinator should set

On eTalenter, Spoken Word Poetry is filed under Literary and typically scored with Marks. It appears in 1 ready-made event templates — each one can adjust its time limit, age-group assignment and scoring setup independently.

Across the templates that use it, Spoken Word Poetry is most often entered as an Individual competition, commonly run for Female, typically scored out of 100, commonly time-limited to around 5 minutes where a limit is set.

What judges look at in Spoken Word Poetry

What a Spoken Word Poetry panel is actually weighing up, and where the marks are usually won or lost:

• Message and content (40 marks): a clear idea about the drawn topic, expressed in fresh images and a shape with a beginning, a turn and an ending; the largest block of marks goes to what the poem says, so a well-spoken list of lines on the topic scores below a piece with a point of view
• Delivery and performance (30 marks): how the piece is carried as a whole, including posture, eye contact, gesture and stage manner; small repeatable movements that support the lines gain marks, and wandering or reading from the floor loses them
• Voice variation and projection (15 marks): changes of pace, volume and pitch to follow the meaning, and a voice that reaches the back of the room; one flat tone for five minutes caps this heading however good the words are
• Memorization (10 marks): delivery without a script and without stopping to find the next line; because the piece is original, a stumble costs marks twice, once here and again in the flow of delivery
• Audience impact (5 marks): whether the room is still, laughing or moved by the end; it is the smallest heading, so it rewards a performer who connected rather than one who performed at the audience
• Time discipline: the rules carry a deduction for overrunning, so finishing inside the window protects the whole score. The size of the deduction is not printed, so treat it as a real risk, not a small one. This point is general advice, not a printed heading

Treat these as the judging focus, not a fixed rubric: publish your own weighted criteria for Spoken Word Poetry under Scoring Setup, or start from the full recitation & poetry judging criteria guide.

How to prepare for Spoken Word Poetry

How entrants and their teachers usually get Spoken Word Poetry right on the day:

• Write several practice poems on random topics. Because the topic is drawn on the day, the training is a method, not a poem: have a short checklist (the main idea, two images, a turn, an ending) and run it on any word a teacher calls out, then time the result
• Build a bank of Cebuano words, sayings and images to draw on, so that whatever topic comes out of the bowl you can reach for natural, local language rather than translated phrases; the panel hears this class in the language of home
• Learn the piece the way you learned the topic: speak it aloud from memory several times, not read it silently, and rehearse it once while walking so the words are tied to rhythm and not to a page
• Rehearse the three-to-five-minute window with a timer. Aim to finish comfortably inside the limit, because the printed rules carry a timing deduction, and practise a cut that drops a verse cleanly if the first run is long
• Use the weights to decide where practice time goes: about two fifths of the marks reward the message, so spend more time on the idea and its shape than on volume or gesture
• Practise the first and last ten seconds separately. A calm start and a clear last line shape the panel’s memory of the piece and cost nothing to rehearse
• Perform to a small audience of classmates and ask one question afterwards: what was the point of the poem? If they cannot say, the message heading needs work before the delivery does

Frequently asked questions

Is Spoken Word Poetry judged individually or as a team?

Across eTalenter’s templates it’s most often run as an Individual entry, commonly for Female, though an organiser can set either participation type when assigning the item to an age group.

Is Spoken Word Poetry the same as reciting a poem?

No. A recitation delivers a poem someone else wrote, and the panel judges the delivery. In this class the contestant performs an original piece on a topic drawn on the day, and the largest share of the marks (40 of 100) goes to the message and content, so the writing counts as much as the speaking.

Is it the same as the Spoken Word page on this site?

It is the same family of performance poetry, but the setup differs. The Spoken Word page describes team and national-programme versions with their own settings; this page describes one individual, girls-only Visayan/Cebuano class with its own five-heading mark scheme. Check your own notice for entry type, time and headings.

How long can the piece be?

The rules give a window of three to five minutes and carry a deduction for running over. The template sets five minutes as the maximum. The size of the deduction is not printed, so a coordinator who wants to apply one has to set it in the registration rules.

Which language is it performed in?

Visayan (Cebuano). The platform has no Cebuano entry, so the template records the language as Any/NA and the rules name it. A coordinator running the class in another language can change that setting.

Can a contestant enter this and another category?

The rules allow one category only at any level. A Cadet who enters Spoken Word Poetry therefore cannot also enter the Cadet singing choir in the same edition.

Want the full judging picture? Read the full recitation & poetry judging criteria guide, or browse every literary competition item.