Socially acceptable failure. Mental depression. Racism. Social injustice. These are just a few topics that 2016 seniors at LHS chose to write their slam poems about. After not doing the project last year, English 400 teachers Mary Quinn and Brian Weilert decided to bring it back this year a a way to enjoyably fulfill the curriculum requirements for creative writing.
Slam poetry is a free verse spoken word poem that brings an awareness to an injustice. When told to write a slam poem, seniors were given instructions to loosely guide their writings. Their poems needed to have a message that they want conveyed about their frustration and it needed to be 2-3 minutes in length. Other than those two guidelines, the project was left fairly open-ended.
After talking to ten seniors about the project, it became abundantly clear that all of them loved it. They all saw it as a huge success. This project was different to them. It was a chance to freely voice their opinion on topics that really mattered and topics that pulled at their heartstrings. Even better, the classroom provided a place to acceptably share them. Every single senior was required to write a poem and to then share it with the class.
Quinn said, “[It was such a big thing] just because it was so different of an assignment. They were able to see themselves in an element they never had before. I think they really liked it.”
She was right. They really did like it. And not only did the seniors like it, but so did the rest of the student body and many teachers. One of these teachers was Kimberly Payton, an English teacher who is running Louisburg’s first TEDx youth event. Payton saw the slam poems as not only a good edition to TEDx as far as a different type of performance, but also as an oral presentation.
“Poetry has its own effect and that form of expression fits in with TEDx. The sharing experience and the expressionism [is great],” said Payton.
Furthermore, Payton didn’t just take the idea of the slam poem into her event and give it to the students she already had performing, but rather she talked to Mrs. Quinn and Mr. Weilert about who they believed were their top class performers or pieces. After consideration, it was decided that 8 seniors were going to be given the opportunity to speak. These eight were, in no particular order, Jacob Mitchell, Spencer Rogers, Dillon Roberts, Jennifer Straub, Lexie Shaner, Kelsey Traffis, Abigail Bergman, and Lauren DePriest.
The slam poetry allowed students to have more than just a grade for a creative writing assignment. It has given them free reign of expression and opportunities that wouldn’t have otherwise arisen. Even though the topic really buzzed this year and many students have said they would like to see the project continued, slam poetry has been popular for a lot longer than just this year.
Weilert expressed a very sensible reasoning to the popularity of this project. “Slam has been big for a lot of years. What makes it so popular is that it’s so accessible. If you have a strong emotion, you can write a slam. It’s competitive, but it’s almost a community. They’re listening to people say stuff that is emotional and powerful.”
Poetry is as much about the performance and presentation as it is about the substance and this project really opened that up to the seniors.
