What: Victoria Slam Where: Solstice Café, 529 Pandora When: Every third Thursday of the month, 7:30 p.m. How much: $5 by donation

Imagine a place where hoardes of people pack into chairs and squeeze together against hallways and walls just to watch you beat out your thoughts on toilet paper, milk, existentialism, love and masturbation.

Soft lights glitter over sweaty skin. The air is rich with the smells of old wooden floorboards, inked body odor, anticipation and herbal tea. A constant buzz of excitement murmurs through the room. Open mic’ers step onto the stage warming the crowd. Clapping and whistles hail from every angle of the small coffee house. It’s time.

It’s the kick-off of the annual Victoria Slam poetry sessions, hosted by Tongues of Fire, and it’s ready to smash viewers’ preconceptions about what poetry can be.

“Slam is the Olympics of poetry,” Slammaster Kristy Westendorp called out to the crowd on Jan. 15, as the cheering erupted. “Audience, your job is to sway the judges. Judges, your job is to completely ignore the audience.”

A slam is a poetic competition where performers have three minutes to perform original poetic work without props, costumes or music. Contestants are then judged by the audience and a panel of selected judges.

While the Victoria Slam sessions happen every third Thursday of the month until May (when the official Slam Team is assembled for national competition), Solstice Café also hosts Tongues of Fire Open Mic nights every second and fourth Thursday as well — a good place to practice for those slammers hoping to make it to nationals.

“It is a very interactive and exhilarating event,” said Missie Peters, one of this year’s slam organizers and the 2008 Victoria Slam Champion. “When we have a competition, people really bring it.”

Despite the loose and casual nature of the slam, points are taken seriously. Just to be certain the numbers are fair (or that “nice people and assholes” are ignored), the judges who award the highest and lowest scores are disregarded — only the middle scores count.

The Slammaster, Westendorp, is also meant to stay unbiased in her dealings with the contestants. This makes for awkward post-poet commentary, as she’s prohibited from even saying “good job” to the performers. The audience fell into laughter as Westendorp droned on about her dog’s dreams while waiting for the judges to tally their scores.

That said, the operation largely goes off without a hitch.

“The calibre of poetry we get at a slam is phenomenal,” said Westendorp, who doubles as one of the slam organizers. “The point system forces people to step it up ... it forces people to keep their poetry relevant. It’s meant to be accessible.”

Dave Morris was the big winner of the night on Jan. 15, reeling in near-perfect scores from both the audience and the judges on his brash love poems. Morris now qualifies for one of the four Slam Team spots, but he’ll have to keep slamming to secure his reign — the overall points aren’t tallied until May.

Morris attributes his girlfriend, Peters, as the main reason he got into slams, and why he’s performing in the competition. And while Morris said he has participated in and taught improv acting for almost 10 years, he’s only been performing poetry for two. But experience took a back seat to entertainment on Thursday.

“I was really pleased to see the turnout,” said Peters, who came in second out of the 12 contestants. “It’s really exciting to see people this excited about poetry — and at a level where they’re really engaging with the [performances].”

Morris’ love-centric poems (one of which accused one-and-a-half inches of space being too far away from a lover’s face, even if it made that person look like a Cyclops) took on poignant angles for the crowd — a key that played a part in winning him the top slot for the night. Yet, Morris reiterates the slogan heard multiple times throughout the slam: the point’s not the point; the point’s the poetry.

“In order to compete on a slam team you need to be comfortable with your words,” Morris said. “Reacting to how the audience is perceiving you and seeing how the words affect them — that’s the most beautiful thing.”