Above, Ainsley Burrows takes congratulations after winning The Ill List V. At front, Burrows recites his winning poem. Photos by Ian Hill / 209Vibe.

Damn.

No, I mean, damn

The Ill List V was a classic, as a sell-out crowd of 600 was treated to an emotional, high-energy night of poetry Dec. 13 at The State Theatre in Modesto. For the second year in a row an unexpected tie took the slam to a fourth overtime round, with Brooklyn, N.Y. poet Ainsley Burrows barely beating out defending champion Sonya Renee of L.A. for the title.

The event was sponsored by 209Vibe and organized by Sam Pierstorff and Greg Edwards, The Modesto promoters put on a great show that featured performances by go-go dancers The Radiowaves in addition to poetry. Pierstorff and Edwards also did a great job at entertaining the crowd and keeping the show moving with their comedic skit commercials about the event sponsors.

While the West Coast-East Coast nature of the OT round was jokingly billed as "Tupac vs. Biggie," in reality the competitive nature of the event wasn't nearly as entertaining as the performances themselves. Every poet kicked ass: from ForWord and D Silence, whose opening-round poems on homosexuality were profoundly affecting, to NerCity, whose letter to an ex about how he'd be wrong was straight-up hilarious.

The semi-finals came down to D Silence, Burrows and Renee and the poet "i." Each rocked the mic. D Silence talked about taking karate classes as a kid L.A. and hammered home a message about urban violence. Renee drew tears from some in the crowd when she described trying to repair her relationship with her father. And "i"'s poem about fighting for - and losing - the life of her young daughter was like an emotional firebomb lofted into the crowd.

But Burrows carried the evening by focusing on a subject that received surprisingly little attention during the night: The election of Barack Obama. Burrows poem expressing the hope that came with Obama's victory earned him the highest marks of the night - and The Ill List title.

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