Upload Your Song or Poem and Enter to Win, Now!

We are inviting our community to join us in a contest designed to celebrate, reflect, consider and reimagine the Black experience, Black joy and Black futures, throughout Black History Month. With prizes of $200.00 each for one poet and one emcee, TruArtSpeaks will release one writing prompt a day via social media throughout the entire month of February. BIPOC Minnesota youth poets between the ages of 13-24 are invited and encouraged to read and respond to these prompts through poetry or rap and upload the submissions by the end of Black History Month.

Two winners – one from each genre/medium – will receive a prize of $200.00 and an invitation to open up for the statewide #BeHeardMN youth poetry slam competition on March 27th, 2021. Winners will be decided by a panel of three Twin Cities emcees/poets and announced on March 10th, 2021.

Follow us on social media to access the prompts: @truartspeaks on all platforms. See below for contest rules, eligibility and the submission form.

Happy writing!

Eligibility:

• Writers must be between the ages of 13-24 years old
• Writers must identify as members of the BIPOC community
• Writers must reside in the state of Minnesota

Rules:

• Poets must have an entry that is at least 14 lines in length
• Emcees must have an entry that is at least 16 bars in length and written over the beat produced by Medium Zach (see link below for access to a download link for the beat– all rap submissions must be written over this instrumental, no exceptions)
• All submissions must be in response to one of the daily #BlackHistoryLit writing prompts
• All submissions due on February 28th, 2021
• Limit to one submission per person
• You cannot submit to both categories, you must choose one

Judging Criteria:

Rap:

• Judges will look make their selection based on:
  • Flow/Rhythm
  • Creativity/Poetics
  • Originality
  • Connection to the #BlackHistoryLit prompt
• You will not be judged on the quality of your recording; however, do make sure that we can hear you and the beat clearly.

Poets:

• Judges will look make their selection based on:
  • Originality
  • Creativity
  • Poetics
  • Connection to the #BlackHistoryLit prompt

For any additional questions, please email info@truartspeaks.org