Madison National Poetry Slam team ready for the spotlight

"Because you edit constantly; because you're doing it right now!," she answers.

Hurley indicates that he's just making a few small adjustments to a piece, prompting the team's youngest member Danez Smith, 18, to yell, "No! No! Don't you touch that damn poem."

According to the quintet, they have quite an arsenal. With approximately 19 pieces rehearsed, tweaked and approved, they have plenty of options to choose from, and are more prepared than the Madison teams that have competed before them.

"It's nice to be in the position where you have things to choose from," said Gildrie-Voyles. "The first year we went we had three people on the team instead of four, so you had to do every single poem every single night that you possibly knew. We get more prepared each year, and I definitely feel good about this year." Across from her, Eric Mata, another National Poetry Slam veteran, nods his agreement.

So does Smith, who adds, "It'll be great not to be writing anything the night before."

Besides solo pieces, the team has also developed a number of group works, which involve two or more team members on stage at the same time. Gildrie-Voyles explains that this can be anything from two people switching off lines of a poem or multiple characters within a poem to vocal effects much like backup singers. Generally, the group pieces are written by one team member, then adapted for more voices, though they have collaborated simultaneously on some pieces during this process.

With only hours remaining before the National Poetry Slam begins here in Madison, the hometown team is anxious and excited, and ready to compete. They have friends on different teams around the country that they're excited to see and competition they're eager to match up against.

"I always enjoy watching the smaller cities perform, just to see what they are writing and working on," says Mata. "I know I'm going to get really good writing from New York, Seattle, Portland and Chicago. But there's one team that always shows up from a Native American reservation and they always go up and do their thing, not worried about their scores. They just want to perform and come hang out with poets."

"On a cocky note, I'm the youngest out of everybody," jokes Smith, "so I'm looking forward to seeing the big names cry." The team members all admit that there tends to be a crying component to slam.