“Photo: Karen Lennon reads her frenetically-composed, but brilliantly-phrased poem to the Poetry Slam audience at the Dog House.Matt Johnson / staff photoThe Island-style Poetry SlamThe Island Arts Council began its Island-style Poetry Slam about four years ago, with Jim Freeman as emcee for all of them; he has also videotaped most of them. The IAC now holds the slams once a month, alternating between North Whidbey and the Southend. On Feb. 2 the Slam will be held at the Whidbey Brew Pub in Oak Harbor. It will return to South Whidbey on March 15, again at the Doghouse in Langley. During the past two summers, when the Doghouse has a big dinner crowd, the event has moved to Langley City Park, becoming an al fresco slam. For more information, call 221-5746.The assorted collection of people seated variously around the Backdoor Restaurant of the Doghouse in Langley on Wednesday included a university student, Boeing employees, a recording artist, a CPA, a former resident on hiatus from Antarctica, and published poets and writers, including four currently in residence at Hedgebrook. The mix was a propitious one. Together with host Jim Freeman’s natural wit and good humored banter, it combined to create another of the uniquely Island-style Poetry Slams.They’re billed as often imitated, never duplicated. Poets, famous or hopeful, buy three words for three bucks, are allotted 25 minutes to write a poem using the words, then read it before the audience and compete for prizes. They are judged on the quality of the poem, its presentation and the use of the words. Barton Cole, himself a noted poet, facilitates the South Whidbey Slams, welcoming the poets and and collecting the money: $60 for this Wednesday night, most of which would be divided among the top three winners. That meant 15 competitors would be writing an original poem that evening and reading it to an audience who would hear it for the first time.The intensity of the event gets the heart going, said Cole, who has written at many a Slam. Newcomers, or those with a bit of stage fright, can have their poems read by someone else, or can read it to the judges only, without facing the audience. But eventually, Cole said, they all get up to do it. It’s a real rush.Before the rush, however, there was a hush. A few pens could be heard moving across paper, there were some muted conversations, but until Jim Freeman announced, There are four minutes left, words were seen but not heard. The Doghouse is seldom this quiet.The atmosphere changed, however, as time was called and the first poets came to the front of the room to read their poems. Three sets of words had been distributed: shore, globe, surround; nun, yoke, shallow; and flood, burst and botanical. And although all the poets shared their three-word sets with others, the similarities, of course, stopped there.Derek Parrott (fresh from a tour of Greenbank, noted Freeman) used his words in a lighthearted vein. Cambridge, Mass., writer MI OK Song Bruining, one of the table of four from Hedgebrook, wrote four Hedgebrook haikus. A humorous poem by Jane Edgley drew laughing applause.There were more serious themes, in poems by Julia Thompson (from Hedgebrook), Marjiann Moss and Lorraine Healey. Crystal Ryan (being Crystal, Freeman noted) picked her own three words to write a poem about turning 21. And the winners? Judges Cole, Olivia Gunn and Drew Kampion awarded a tie for fourth-fifth-sixth to Joni Takanikos, Julia Thompson and Zach (from the back). Freeman presented them prizes from my shed, some fresh, some recycled — a Superman comic; sunflower seeds from Virginia, and what Freeman described as late magazines from several doctors’ offices in the area.The money went to the top three: Lorraine Healey in third place won $10 for her poem, A Catholic School morning; Heath Gunn received a stack of 15 ones for Lucas; and Myra Shapiro won $20 in first place, accompanied by a copy of Ghost. It’s all so sudden, Shapiro said with a grin. I think I’ll move to Whidbey Island.The blithe spirit of the event was what Cole said is typical of an Island-style Poetry Slam.Other slams (in America) are pretty much a poetry reading contest. People bring poems with them to read. They can be brutal — even with boos from the audience, he said. Ours is more supportive of poets. It’s not about rules, it’s about poetry. There’s a great atmosphere — a roomful of people who are all endeavoring to create a good poem.Cole noted that the quality of the poems themselves is always of a high caliber. The atmosphere elicits that from everyone, he said.Mi OK Song Bruining, who has been to many other Slams, called South Whidbey’s event excellent. Jane Edgley said she liked the Slams here: Jim Freeman is so funny. Daniael Stull, who served the Doghouse food and drinks, said the Poetry Slam was the reason she worked that night. And Cherie Ude, who came in accidentally, laughed as she recalled that her parents (writers Marian Blue and Wayne Ude) dragged her unwilling to Poetry Slams when she was younger. And they weren’t there on Wednesday to see her debut.As soon as my heart quit pounding, I found it amusing, she said. Ude was revisiting her home after a stint in Antarctica where she is working as a painter for the forest service. I’m going back down in April, she said. Cole, who is also the chair of the Island Arts Council’s Literary Committee, explained that the Poetry Slam — along with Community Readings held at various times on South Whidbey — supports the mission of the IAC: to make literary opportunities available to everyone.The best thing is that the money goes back to the artists, he said. “