BLOOMINGTON - A two-day writing conference at Illinois Wesleyan University this weekend will take participants - formal college students and non-students alike - deeper into the craft of creative writing and into the writing-performance hybrid called poetry slam.

Acclaimed poetry slammers Buddy Wakefield and Robb Telfer are among presenters.

Those coming to the conference have an option: Take in readings and poetry slamming without cost or pay $20 for seminar sessions as well. Illinois Wesleyan students get the entire package for free.

Friday and Saturday evening events will be free and open to the public at Hansen Student Center, 300 Beecher St., Bloomington.

Poetry Slam is a modern version of poetry reading in which performance matters in addition to content. The poetry often reads like hip-hop music.

Telfer engineered slam events here while studying at Illinois State University, where he earned a master's of fine arts degree in 2006.

Wakefield appeared at Illinois Wesleyan last year. He is a World Poetry Slam champion and has been profiled by national and international media.

The other keynotes for the weekend are writers Kent Johnson and Davis Schneiderman.

The Tongue & Ink creative writing conference is an annual event of IWU's literary magazine Tributaries.

Go to www.iwu.edu/~tribut/ for more information.

Free events

• 6 to 7 p.m. Friday, Davis Schneiderman reading

• 7:30 to 9 p.m. Friday, Poetry slam hosted by Robbie Q. Telfer with featured poet Buddy Wakefield

• 4 to 5 p.m. Saturday, keynote reading by Kent Johnson

• 5 to 6 p.m. Saturday, student readings and reception.