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The crowd clapped and some snapped their fingers as she received her score — a 29 out of a possible 30 points.

Irick performed two poems Saturday as part of the first Poetry Slamsation at The Barrie School in Silver Spring, an event that featured an appearance by a well-known slam poet, Taylor Mali.

Slam poetry is an art form that allows writers to express their ideas, feelings and words into a poem with elements of performance and personality.

Slam poets often use deep emotions or even comedy to express themselves, but poets usually are not allowed to use props, costumes or musical instruments.

At most poetry slams, an audience of peers judges the competition and for The Barrie School, students from the eighth- and ninth-grades scored each contestant on a 1 to 10 system, 10 being the best. The lowest and highest scores were dropped. Each student was asked to write and perform one poem and a second if he or she advanced to the next round. There were also group poetry performances.

Irick said she signed up because she loved to write and the competition would give her a chance to learn how to improve her writing and performance.

‘‘I like [slam poetry] because ... you have to be loud and energetic and that helps with nervousness,” she said.

But before students took the stage, they were all given a unique chance to practice with Mali, a New York City native who has won four national slam poetry competitions and led six teams to several group championships. The students had studied Mali and his work extensively in many of their humanities classes.

Mali, who said he does many of his paid speaking engagements and performances during National Poetry Month, loved what he saw out of the Barrie students.

‘‘This is the age where people start worrying about being cool ... and stifle themselves, and poetry is about giving you permission to say things you wouldn’t want to say to anyone,” he said.

‘‘It’s really cool to have a professional guy here and we’ve listened to a lot of his poems,” said Kara Fannon, a 13-year-old from Silver Spring, who competed Saturday. Fannon’s first poem was about hating the United States of America.

‘‘We all hate America,” she said during her performance. ‘‘We pollute, demolish ... start wars and never end them.”

For some students, the chance to perform in front of an audience is what really drew them into slam poetry.

‘‘I decided to do this because I like the spotlight and I like to perform,” said 13-year-old Patricia Tabla of Germantown shortly before the show Saturday.

But in the end, 13-year-old Kensington resident Robert Mulvey won the hearts of his peer judges, earning first place. Mulvey’s first poem was about the difficulty of writing a poem and included more light-hearted material than some of the others.

‘‘I thought I could write the perfect poem,” he said to the crowd. ‘‘I tried to write with self-deprecation but little did I know that wasn’t me. ... I was going to change the world, one Taylor Mali at a time.”

Mulvey said he was asked to write two poems for the slam. He became very anxious, but was able to convert his fear and anxiety into expression.

‘‘I came to notice what I was ranting about was actually what I could make into a poem,” he said Monday during a phone interview. ‘‘It was like a poetic moment.”

Mulvey, who is also interested in ballet and drawing, said he thinks slam poetry is another way of expressing himself.

‘‘It’s an escape and it’s amazing,” he said.

The art of slam poetry, taught in the middle school, interested three former eighth-graders in particular. The students had participated in slam poetry coffeehouses organized at the school and decided to try to make a larger event for the middle school to enjoy.

One of the ninth-grade organizers, Dosu Teyibo, 14, said he saw Mali perform at a school in Washington, D.C., and thought he’d be a great addition to the poetry slam, which was scheduled for April during National Poetry Month.

Laurel Seid, the dean of middle school at The Barrie School, said she hopes the slam can become an annual event.

‘‘The slam poetry or spoken-word poetry has a strong association with young, hip, urban folks,” Seid said. ‘‘As a form [of literature], it has real appeal to middle school students.”