<div>This title is a the second book to document the unique slam poetry contest created by Lincoln Center to celebrate talented teens from New York composing original poetry.<BR><BR>Collated as part of a ground-breaking series in partnership with Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and non-profits from each of New York’s five boroughs, the inaugural season sees each new ?slam poet” find their own voice, aided in their journey by an array of professional poets, judges and performance professionals.<BR><BR>A series of battles are the focus in each competition night over an intensive six week period, where teens from various organizations compete for a place in the Grand Slam Finals. With the partnership non-profits including important, progressive organizations such as Curtis High School, El Puente, Girls Write Now, Global Writes, SAYA! (South Asian Youth Action), and Urban Word, the intense and exhilarating series is one of significant social and cultural recognition.<BR><BR>The event's associated publication contains more than 80 poems from the contestants in the series, alongside work from established poets and critical essays on the medium and the initiative. The poems themselves portray a varied and illuminating survey into the attuned teenage mind, exploring, and often inverting, themes of race, love, lust, family and class in the playful, sardonic and relentless ebb and flow of the Poetry Slam itself.</DIV>