Casandra Broaddus slams out loud.

“Slam poetry is a spoken-word performance. It forces you to be confident.”

When Casandra, an Army Reservist and co-manager at Express Design Studios, summons her inner Phenomenal Woman, she connects her audience with theirs.   Her poem, Impatient, nails the frustration of being 24 and ‘sitting at the light at Huguenot and Robious’ waiting for life to begin.

Pen/Poet, a smoldering duet with poet Lee Jones, captures a lovers’ quarrel between Art (the pen) and Commerce (the poet): ‘You used to love me, snuggled behind your ear,’ Jones’ pen, chides her poet. ‘When’s the last time you had me pressed down in the sheets?’

Casandra discovered spoken-word at Tuesday Verses at Tropical Soul, a 2nd Street restaurant. “I wasn’t into clubs; but this felt like my living room. The poets became family.” Open-mic nights led to local slams and, in August, she competed in the National Poetry Slam in Austin, TX. Catch her and Richmond’s finest slam artists at the Just Poetry Grand Slam October 29 at the Firehouse Theater

www.justpoetryslam.com