Best place to hear the roar of an Amazon

Three minutes is what you get to make yourself shine. If you do it right, everyone in the room can feel your body pulse as you beat out every word and emotion that you've somehow wrapped into a poem. When you're done, the crowd hollers and claps while the judges, picked beforehand from the crowd, jot down scores ranging from 1 to 10 on torn pieces of notebook paper. You wait to hear your score, then quickly return to your seat to wait and watch as another daring poet takes the stage. Welcome to the Amazon Slam, an all-women open-mic poetry slam that's been happening in Cambridge the last Sunday of every month since 1996.

Ren Jender, the promoter behind these slams, initially held them at Upstairs at Ryles, a defunct converted club space for queer women. Since then, Jender's been hopping all over Cambridge like a jumping bean trying to find a steady home for the Slam. Recently, she returned to Ryles in a new club space for women called SomePlace Else. The significance is not lost on Jender, who notes that the slam is now "back at [its] birthplace." As a result of this roots-return, the setting for the slam remains virtually identical to that of its inception. A small, dark, upstairs room provides the space where women congregate to hear stories that they seldom hear in their daily paper or newscast -- stories that evoke issues of race, class, sexuality, and gender, for instance. For many women, it's a starting point to get their feet wet before hitting the slam circuit. For others, it allows the freedom to release what's been on their mind for too long. Though it may lack the cutthroat quality of many slams, it's still one intense and powerful ride.

Amazon Slam takes place the last Sunday of every month at SomePlace Else, in Ryles Jazz Club, 212 Hampshire Street, Inman Square, Cambridge. Sign- ups at 7 p.m., slam at 7:30 p.m. (617) 876- 9330.