The Hear Here poetry slam rocked Stargazers Theatre Wednesday evening, when poets from up and down the front range blasted the venue with verse on everything from outrage on education to the beauties of shoelessness.

“It’s a word circus,” laughed Hear Here curator Susan Peiffer, who’s been slamming competitively since 2007. “It’s performance poetry.”

Slams (like Hear Here) generally have five judges, who score each poet on a scale from 0 to 10, and the high and low scores are dropped, giving poets a three-point average score.

But, Peiffer was quick to note, “the points aren’t the point. The poetry is the point.

“People come together to share their stories, and to have a shared experience, to craft words in a way that extends oral tradition into our modern society.”

Read Gazette reporter Jen Mulson’s story about Hear Here.

Susan Peiffer and Luke Cissell of Hear Here poetry. Photo by Courtesy Luke Cissell