After the votes were tallied, Henry Morray, Iowa City’s representative to the 2025 SlamoVision international slam poetry competition was declared the winner. The results were shared as part of the final event hosted on Thursday, Nov. 6, by the Dublin UNESCO City of Literature. The entire program can be viewed here.
Morray was one of 17 poets from UNESCO Cities of Literature around the world who participated in the competition. Each city selected one poet to participate, and submitted a video of their performance. Judging events in each of the Cities of Literature were then held where the city scored every poet but their own. The final tabulations were shared at the event.
Morray became Iowa City’s representative to the international competition by winning the local Iowa City slam on Sept. 9 at Public Space One’s Close House. A video of his winning poem was submitted and then scored by the other participating cities. Each city assigned between 1 and 16 points to each poet. At the end of voting, Morray sat atop the list with 218 points.
Morray is a spoken word poet born in Maryland and raised in Iowa. Henry attended school at Cornell College in Mount Vernon. It was at Cornell where he discovered his passion for poetry, becoming the President of the school’s spoken word and poetry club: Lyrically Inclined. In his senior year of college, Henry became Iowa City’s 2022 Champion for SlamoVision. In 2023 Henry graduated from Cornell College with a Bachelor’s in Product Development and Marketing. Currently Henry resides in the Quad Cities, where he routinely leads poetry workshops for students in the writing program Young Lions Roar and co-hosts The Roaring Rhetoric Open Mic in Rock Island, Illinois.
The winner’s city hosts the next year’s final event, so Iowa City will host Slamovision in 2026.
