Aggie Poets In Top 20 In National Spoken Word Competition

2007/06/07

Poets Stephen Sargent and JeFF Stumpo are no strangers to a microphone, so the two Texas A&M University doctoral students – Sargent in political science and Stumpo in English – are right at home participating in FameCast.com’s national spoken word stage competition.

In fact, the two are ranked in the top 20 among participants in the national competition.

Sargent, along with Roger Reeves and Leanetta "Shug" Avery, founded and hosts “Mic Check,” a weekly open mic at Revolution Café, a local establishment. He was part of the Fort Worth team that placed third at the National Poetry Slam in 2005.

Stumpo established “Javashock,” Bryan-College Station's first poetry slam, in 2003 and helped organize various poetry events around town, including last year's Southwest Writers & Artists Festival and a reading by several South American poets as part of the Poetry of the Americas Conference.

Both poets are competing for $10,000 on FameCast.com's spoken word stage. Like American Idol online, FameCast hosts competitions in various categories: pop, rock, hip-hop and more.

This season, spoken word was added to the ensemble and more than 80 poets posted videos.

The first cut on Wednesday (June 6), dropped the number of poets to 50. A new round of voting will bring the total to 25 on June 20.

A third round of cuts will result in 10 poets on July 4. The five poets with the most votes as of July 19 will be given travel to and accommodations in Austin, where they will perform on the final stage at the National Poetry Slam on Aug. 11. A final week of voting will result in a grand prize winner.

Sargent's entry can be viewed at http://www.famecast.com/stephensargent and Stumpo's entry is at http://www.famecast.com/jeff.stumpo.

Contact: Sargent at thegrassrootscompany@yahoo.com or 936-355-2988 or Stumpo at jeff.stumpo@gmail.com or 979-220-9226.