“Come to write. Come to witness. Come to call the spirits within us,” was the tagline for a semi-underground, Halloween-themed poetry slam at a dark venue on Lomas with a major speakeasy vibe. Last week, the best of the best in the local poetry community gathered to showcase world-class skills on the mic at the very first Slambrosia – a traditional, three-round poetry slam at a newer venue called at Ambrosia (4806 Lomas) just outside the International District. A “slam” is a competitive, elimination-style poetry event in which judges score poets based on both content and performance. The second round of the competition had a “spooky” theme, and slam poets were given a small bonus if the judges deemed their performance frightening enough for Halloween. Slambrosia welcomes poetry fans of all-ages, but the organizers don’t censor poets, and some of the subject matter last week was pretty heavy, so parents be warned. Many of the poets showed up in costume, and each table had a bowl of candy for fuel. Before the main event, aspiring poets gathered for a free spooky-themed writing workshop called Spill the Ink offered by local author, educator, publisher, performer, organizer and assistant director of the Chicharra Poetry Slam Festival Katrina Kay. The atmosphere may sound fun and low-pressure – and it was – but the competition was serious and the poems were both powerful and even a bit terrifying at times. As an extra-special bonus, New Mexico’s newly-crowned poet laureate Manuel Gonzales hosted the event.
Local poet Lizzie Waltner organized and put the whole thing together, but she says several members of Albuquerque’s tight-knit poetry community joined forces with her to make the successful event happen. She’s been taking a break from competing in slams lately, focusing more on open mics, but she says she might step her foot back into it eventually. Waltner wanted to host an all-ages event in order to create a space for “youth poets,” and she managed to round up most – if not all – of the top competitors in Albuquerque’s slam community at Ambrosia last week.
“We have such a good lineup, I could gush over all of them. I think almost all of them have been in national competitions and have books published. Our local spoken word [community] is so strong, and we have such phenomenal artists, so it’s fun to have everybody come together and battle it out,” Waltner says.
Even when it’s not Halloween, the poets “sacrifice” one of their own at the slam each time, but it’s not a blood offering to the poetry gods or anything like that. Waltner says the “sacrificial” poet is basically someone who gives the judges a chance to adjust and develop a baseline for scoring. The inaugural Slambrosia martyr was none other than Albuquerque author and slam poetry event organizer Zachary Kluckman.
“Judges score poets on a zero to ten scale, and the sacrifice kind of gives the judges a chance to find their starting point,” Waltner says. Because once you score them, anybody is either above or below that score. So they’re not in the whole time as a competitor, but they’re a very essential part of the competition.”
Poetry and Beer
Slambrosia competitor Damien Flores was one of the ringers last week – he was just named Albuquerque poet laureate last year – but he didn’t take home first place. Not this time, at least. He’s lived in Albuquerque his whole life and has been competing in slams since his senior year of high school — he hadn’t even turned 18 yet. Flores says a decades-old slam event called Poetry and Beer was one of the shows where he honed some of the important skills he has today, but it wasn’t exactly an easy ride to glory back in the day. Now he hosts the legendary P&B showdown every first Wednesday of the month at Tractor Wells Park. He says these days it’s mostly an open mic with slams here and there, and there aren’t as many competitors as there used to be. Nonetheless 2025 marks the 33rd anniversary of the Albuquerque tradition. It works like karaoke for the most part – you put your name down on the list, wait to be called up and do your poem.
Poetry and Beer started in 1992 and it has continued on under different leadership and with different hosts since then. It was born in Downtown Albuquerque at the Dingo Bar (now Echoes) Flores says of the thing about Poetry and Beer that was very unique was the resilience of the organizers and hosts; if a venue closed down, Poetry and Beer kept going. Flores says he won his first competition in 10nth grade at the old Golden West Saloon on Central.
“If you could win a poetry slam at Poetry and Beer, then chances were you were going to make it onto the Albuquerque poetry slam team for our Grand Slam Championship. We had a very deep scene,” he says. “I just kind of blended in with the rest of the poets. I ended up placing in the top three, and one of the old veteran slammers, Danny Solis, who was hosting, made a joke saying, ‘And then third place: Damian Flores. He’s not even old enough to be in here.’ And those bartenders and bouncers kicked my ass out like right away.”
Flores says at subsequent slams, organizers positioned little velvet ropes around his table to ensure he wouldn’t leave or sit anywhere besides his designated area by the stage. As he grew as a performer – and became old enough to move as he pleased inside liquor establishments – Flores took the reins at Poetry and Beer in 2013 and negotiated to host the Albuquerque Poetry Slam Championship at Tractor’s new venue in Wells Park the same year. They sold the venue out. Today Albuquerque poets have won three national slam poetry championships and two collegiate championships, and Flores says all the poets on those championship teams cut their teeth at Poetry and Beer. In those days, crowds – and fellow poets – weren’t quite as kind to up-and-coming future laureates as they are today.
“Last night’s slam was very supportive. It had a good energy vibe and was very, very welcoming. Poetry and Beer in the heyday was cutthroat. You were performing in a room full of drunk people that weren’t there to hear poetry. You were getting heckled. There wasn’t any support. There were some people that would talk shit to you right there as you were on the mic. And you just had to hold your ground and do it – be louder than the drunk assholes or be louder than the poets you were competing against who wouldn’t clap for you. They’d just look at you and have that intimidating presence, because that was the competitive nature of it, and it was fine. That was just a part of being a slam poet,” Flores says.
He says last week’s slam at Ambrosia “felt like how it used to be.” It gave him and other battle-scarred pros a glimmer of hope to see poets still summoning fire. And among those “dragons” was the show’s big winner, Keith Allen.
The Champ
Allen was the big winner at Slambrosia last week and says the hardest part about performing his final piece – his poem had enough alliteration to make Beowulf blush – was memorizing it. He’s no stranger to the stage, though. Allen has been an actor since high school, and his latest lead in the short film “The Perfect Cut” will screen at the New Mexico Asian Film Festival Nov. 15 at Guild Cinema. He says he’s been performing “random” poetry at open mics and slams for the last 15 years and films similar events for the Albuquerque public access channel. When he moved to Albuquerque in 2020, COVID had brought the whole art scene to a screeching halt, but Allen says the poetry community is experiencing a slow revival. These days, he says it’s like performing for “a room full of therapists.”
“I’m just trying to say some words that people can relate to, you know? My second poem was about addiction and my father, and I know there are lots of people out there who are struggling with an addiction or have a family member going through it. I just wanted to shed light on it and let people know that they’re not the only ones,” Allen says. “The whole scene – everyone from Zack [Kluckman] to Mars [Marcial Delgado] to Kristen [Patton] – is a really tight-knit, awesome group of people that honestly look out for one another and wish each other nothing but love and good vibes. We all go through shit, and we all have our different frustrations in life, and it’s cool to see each other a couple times a month and check in on each other and have that support system.”
He says lately it’s been fun dabbling in the competitive aspect of slam poetry, and he’s had some major success doing it. In July, the BlackBerry Peach Poetry Slam cruised into town – a national competition that determines who will be the sole poet representing the United States at the World Poetry Slam Championship. Allen got a chance to compete for the “last chance qualifier” spot and won. At the national competition, Allen placed ninth in the country, an honor he says felt “very surreal.”
“I like the rhythm and the artistry of crafting poetry. It’s like putting words together and in a certain manner that makes people feel squeezed.” Allen says. “There are lots of people being really vulnerable, just putting themselves out there. And in today’s world, how often can you be that vulnerable in front of a crowd of people? It’s like witnessing art live. And to me, that’s really rad. It’s completely different from seeing vulnerability in a movie or on TikTok or whatever. You see someone going through some shit in real time.”
The Scene
If you’re hoping to witness some of this “shit in real time” yourself, there are several other regular open mics and slam events you might want to check out around town. Chicano poet Marcial Delgado – who also threw down at Slambrosia – is the host of Voices of the Barrio, an monthly open mic event that goes down at El Chante: Casa de Cultura (804 Park Ave. SW). The next Voices of the Barrio event is Nov. 20 at El Chante. Delgado has been performing live in Albuquerque for the past 10 years, and in addition to competing, he participated in last week’s poetry workshop at Ambrosia hosted by Spill the Ink. He calls workshop host Katrina Kay “the heart and soul of the entire poetry community.”
Luna and Poesia is a “night of cold beer and luminary poetry” hosted by Jessica Helen Lopez at Flock of Moons Brewing Company (111 Harvard Dr. SE). Poet Billy Brown hosts a monthly poetry open mic called Fixed and Free which has been running for well over a decade and draws a pretty large crowd of poets from the more academic tradition. Brown also publishes Fixed and Free Quarterly, which recently released its Fall 2025 issue. In Placitas, John Roche and Jukes Nyquist host a poetry space called the Poetry Playhouse. Kluckman says they have frequent events which draw many Albuquerque poets “from the traditional, metric poetry world.”
Slambrosia’s first martyr, Zachary Kluckman, is a prize-winning author, founder of MindWell Poetry and director of the annual Chicharra Poetry Slam Festival, which he says will be bigger and more exciting this year, partly because it will include a youth poetry component. Youth registration for 2026 is free, and registration for all ages opens Nov. 7. Kluckman says attending local, monthly events is not only a great way to sharpen your skills, but an opportunity to connect with mentors or coaches who can help aspiring poet-gladiators prepare for the big competitions.
The Burque Revolt “intergenerational” poetry slam and open mic has regular second Thursday shows at Canvas Artistry (1 Central Ave. SW), and they are affiliated with many other poetry events around town. Burque Revolt is hosted and curated by two-time Womxn of the World Poetry Slam champion Mercedez Holtry. They’ve just added a new show called The Highlight: Music, Art and Poetry on the Patio at Secret Gallery (717 Central Ave. SW). The free fourth Thursday event is a collaboration with Movimento Art, a collective showcasing artists from Albuquerque, the Southwestern U.S. and Mexico.
Flores encourages aspiring poet laureates to just come out and try it, or maybe be an audience member first, if you’re a little nervous. But his best advice is to just jump right in, learn from listening to the veterans who have run the poetry gauntlet and always appreciate the craft.
“There’s no one right way, but I’ve never seen a poet that did not do well by performing from memory and really knowing their poem. I’ve seen some poets on page beat a poet who is rehearsed in a slam, but I have seen way more poets who are rehearsed and polished wipe the floor with everybody else,” Flores says. “I encourage poets to expand their reading knowledge. Danny Solis told me one time that being a poet and not reading is like wanting to be a guitar player who doesn’t listen to music.”
Check out a little slam history and records of competitions info and winners at abqslams.org.