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Judges' scores
Judge #1 Addie Hume 95 - 95
Judge #2 Jonathan Slator 92 - 98
Judge #3 Ben Trujillo 94 - 96

The World Poetry Bout Association announces that World Heavyweight Champion Poet. Sherman Alexie has retained his Title against a challenge by the formidable Wanda Coleman in a hard fought bout held Saturday in Taos. A Native American writer (Spokane/Coeur d'Alene) from Seattle and author of The Summer of Black Widows (Hanging Loose Press), Alexie took the crown last year from two-year Champion Jimmy "Santiago" Baca.

The World Heavyweight Championship Poetry Bout was held before an overflow crowd of 800 screaming poetry fans. The judges, chosen from among the population of the small community, turned in a split decision, with scores of 95-95, 94-96 and 92-98 in favor of the Champ.

The poets were neck and neck going into the last round, which was extemporaneous. Coleman drew the topic "hard drive" and spun an improvisational piece on the various meanings of that phrase. Alexie drew "dumbass" and riffed for four minutes on the implications of the word for contemporary Native Americans.

At the end of the performance before the vocal and enthusiastic audience Mayor Fred Peralta presented the new Champ with the Max Finstein Memorial Trophy, a beaded cap and a cast silver belt-buckle.

Audience members, who were encouraged to record their choices on ballots distributed around the performance hall at the Sagebrush Inn and Convention Center, agreed with the judges choice by an informal vote in favor of Alexie.

Project director Anne MacNaughton was thrilled by the response from poetry fans. "The tension of the performance held the audience spellbound for two hours of truly exciting poetry," she said. "After a year of preparation by several dozen volunteers, the sight of an audience that size truly caught up in the work of two of our country's best poets is a great satisfaction."

As well as serving as the sanctioning body for poetry bouts, the WPBA puts out an annual anthology of poetry by youth and is currently developing a contemporary poetics and performance curriculum for use by schools with a high population of bilingual students.

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