The place was packed and the high-school crowd was on its feet. Kids were roaring, pumped -- clapping and cheering on schoolmates in what turned out to be a very tight competition.

It wasn't a basketball game. In fact, there was no sports equipment in sight.

What sent this audience of 450-plus jammed into the Madison East High School auditorium Thursday afternoon into a good-natured frenzy was ... poetry.

As the crowd fell into attentive silence, seven students from East and three from Shabazz City High School took turns at the mike to pour out their words and their hearts, rhythmically combining urban eloquence with sometimes startlingly tragic or beautiful images. Phrases on justice. Lines on poverty. Words, powerfully, about words.

Held in an atmosphere that was far more supportive than cutthroat, the judged competition was designed to whittle the field down to four contenders for a citywide contest tonight at the Union Theater.

Madison's third-annual Teen Spoken Word Finals will feature winners from tournaments this week in four area high schools, as well as the college-prep People Program and the Warner Community Center. The 7 p.m. show will be followed by a performance of the Senegalese hip-hop group Daara J, with an after-show dance party.

It's the culminating event this year for Youth Speaks Wisconsin, an organization designed to integrate the art of spoken word into the classroom and into young people's lives. Tonight's winners will receive an expenses-paid trip to the Brave New Voices International Poetry Festival in New York in April, where they'll compete with teens from more than 40 cities in the United States and England.

Lyjya Miles, a senior who made the cut for tonight's finals, also won a trip to the national festival in San Francisco in 2005.

"All we did was poetry, 24 hours a day," she said. "People from England and Hawaii and New York came together. We didn't even know each other, and we were doing poetry together."

Miles, a self-described Christian rapper who plans to become a police officer, said she's written about everything from suicide to "happy Christian poems." At East she performed a love poem; other students dealt with subjects ranging from the human devastation of Hurricane Katrina to the Salem witch hunts and philosophical angst. Senior D.J. Clark blasted absentee fathers.

"Nowadays," he declared, "we still have a lot of boys forced to be men / Because we have men who want to be boys."

Spoken word differs from traditional poetry in that "you write it with the performance in mind," said Moira Pirsch, a senior who won the top score in East's semifinals. "There's crowd interaction. You might write it with more alliteration, more melodic things or (use) music. More sounds can come alive."

"Spoken word is not just rap," added Clark. "It can be singing, talking, a short story."

In competition, the young wordsmiths are judged on both content and performance, said Josh Healey, outreach director for Youth Speaks Wisconsin. The quality of the writing counts, plus "how they connect to the crowd, if the piece is memorized, and their energy.

"But," added Healey, "we have a saying: 'The points are not the point. The point is the poetry.' "

Clark agreed. "I don't do it to impress people," he said. "I do it to bring the truth to the stage -- whether it's black history, or about my life. This is my freedom time.

"When you're on stage, it's a whole different world. I'm going to say what I'm going to say, and I know you all are going to sit and listen."

Housed in UW-Madison's new office of multicultural programming, Youth Speaks also plans to launch a spoken-word show on community-sponsored station WORT-FM starting Feb. 18. "Cipher Zone," broadcast from 10 p.m. to midnight Saturdays, will feature uplifting hip-hop music and spoken word from students and established artists.

Evan Bradbury, who will compete in tonight's city finals, said that Youth Speaks club meetings each Wednesday at his school have helped him conquer major stage fright. He's also learned breathing techniques and how to phrase his poetry for a more effective delivery on stage.

Above all, the group offers the chance to compare notes with other writers, said Bradbury, who next year plans to major in creative writing at UW-Milwaukee.

"When you're just writing for yourself -- I really didn't have that much inspiration to draw from," he said. Bouncing ideas off other poets "is inspiring."

"Feedback from your peers is the best feedback you can get," agreed Miles. "I write about how I'm living, and I want to know how my peers are living, too."

\ If you go

What: Youth Speaks Wisconsin: Third Annual Teen Spoken Word Finals, followed by a performance by hip-hop ensemble Daara J and free dance party.

When: 7 p.m. tonight. Daara J performs at 8:30 p.m.

Where: Union Theater, 800 Langdon St.

Tickets: $30, $24 and $18. All students with I.D., $10. Available at the Union Theater box office, 262-2201, or at www.union.wisc.edu/theater/.

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