Lovers and poets filled The Labyrinth for the Love Slam hosted by Lemon Pepper Poetry Slam on Feb. 9.

The Love Slam, hosted by Aunt Gene, a Lemon Pepper board member, included an open mic, two minigames and two rounds of competitive poetry.

“I felt like the energy tonight was really good,” Carter Kirby, a Lemon Pepper community liaison and contestant in the poetry contest, said. “I liked how much crowd reaction there was with the poetry and how engaged everyone was.”

Members of the audience laughed, shouted and danced throughout the night. 

The minigames allowed audience members to take part in rap battles and dance-offs; other audience members cheered for their favorites to determine the winners.

For the competitive poetry rounds, five random members of the audience were chosen to be judges; after each poem, they gave ratings of 1-10. The highest and lowest score for each poem was dropped, and the three middle scores were added together.

The Official Liyah Symone won first place, followed by Big Mond in second place and Renee in third place.

Rigsby St. Claire, president of Lemon Pepper Slam Poetry, said, “Third place always wins some article that will give them inspiration to write more poetry. In this case, they won a poetry workbook. Second place always wins a gift card to an experience that they can enjoy. In this case, second place won a gift card to Community Bakery. And first place always wins cash.” 

St. Claire said Lemon Pepper hosts poetry slams every second Friday of the month at The Labyrinth, 619 S. Spring St. in Little Rock.

St. Claire said the slams were originally hosted at a different location.

“There was an opening at another location to host an event,” he said. “I did spoken word poetry for about 17 years, so I jumped on it. The turnout at the first event was so great that I decided to keep it going as a series at the other location.

“The show outgrew the venue, so we moved to The Labyrinth last April and it’s been a process of growth,” he said. “This is a show that I definitely want to make sure it’s always affordable. I want to keep it competitive because there are other regular poetry open mics, but nobody’s doing a competition.”

St. Claire said there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes at poetry events, so he was glad to have some help from Hasta Hands.

“Recently, our venue has opened up access to our snack bar in the back. And because our show has grown so rapidly, it’s a little hard to stay on top of every element,” He said. “I was delighted that our vendor, Hasta Hands, jumped in to provide treats for everybody.”

St. Claire said the name Lemon Pepper Poetry Slam came to him while eating a tasty meal. 

“I wanted something that sounded fun, and so I struggled on it for a long time,” he said. “I think one day I was eating lemon pepper wings, and I was like ‘Eureka!’”

St. Claire said the next goal for Lemon Pepper Poetry Slam is to become a nonprofit organization.

“There’s so many things I want to be able to do for Lemon Pepper Poetry Slam and to be honest, it’s just unfeasible to be able to do it based on ticket sales alone,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s a labor of love and I want to make sure that as a nonprofit, we can give back to the community in a way that I feel the community deserves.”