“[All the freshmen were] freaking out for the hour before this,” Freshman Dorian King comments, “we were all practicing.”
The freshmen were preparing for the prominent April 18 event: the Poetry Slam. Freshmen AS English teacher Victoria Daniel says, “It’s such a wonderful community event—it gets people together. A lot of students have told me that it inspired them to do something that they might not normally have done, which is to get onstage and [speak] it.”
Freshman Mark Osorio agrees, “It was really cool because there were people who I’ve never seen before. It was like ‘wow, this was a really great bonding experience for the freshman class.’”
This year, the event incorporated both AS and CP English students. Daniel says, “Before, [the teachers] weren’t as interested in joining, and they weren’t doing poetry [in class]. This year, the teachers actually expressed their interest in joining.”
The Poetry Slam is primarily propelled by student involvement, as students founded it seven years ago. “The boys who started it are now sophomores in college,” Daniel remarks, “It was our idea, but they really helped us start it. They were super excited about it and they agreed to be MCs. They carried our excitement and helped give it life.”
Continuing this legacy, 39 freshmen performed original pieces in the new theater during the evening. Most poems were written in freestyle, focusing on serious topics such as individuality and hardship. Freshman Michelle Chow comments, “I wrote my poem to express my grief when [my dog, Bear] had to get put down. I want people to feel the sadness that accumulates throughout the poem, to show them how I felt losing someone so close to me.”
Seizing this opportunity as an outlet, Chow says, “I can easily recall a lot of the grief lifted off my shoulders after expressing my feelings in this piece.”
Many poems also discussed collective hardship. King spoke about fear in wake of recent events in Boston. She comments, “I had so much on my mind because of the bombing and so much that has been happening on the East Coast, so I felt that I needed to give some tribute to it. Other people were going to do poems about being yourself, but I realized that there wasn’t enough dedication to the recent things that happened. It’s very invisible right now—there’s things that people don’t want to talk about, or they try to avoid.”
“I just wanted to get the message that 9/11 and recent events like the [Boston Marathon] bombing and Sandy Hook are not forgotten—they’re always going to be in our lives,” says King. “Even as tragic as they were, they’re always going to be there.”
In contrast to such sober compositions, Osorio recited his poem “Hard to Write a Poem.” Osorio says, “I procrastinated on my poem until three days ago. The poem deciphers what I was actually thinking in my head. That stuff actually happened. I actually had a poem before [this one], but when I read it, I was like, ‘what did I just do?’ So, I ripped it and wrote about writing poems. It’s like poetception—poemception.”
“I forgot more than half my poem, so I had to freestyle it,” Osorio recalls. “I don’t even remember what I said. I just remember people were laughing, and I’m so happy about that too.”
Daniel says, “I always love those moments when the poet gets scared and forgets, and the audience claps for him, supports him. Then that person goes on to do awesomely.”
Students also had the option of performing with their classmates. Freshmen Caroline Mameesh and Diana Burdette joined together and performed a poem celebrating their friendship. Mameesh comments, “Our friendship [inspired us]. It just kind of explains who we both are.”
To emphasize their differences, they added costumes to their performance. Mameesh says, “[The costumes were] the first thing we kind of thought of. I’m really into Japanese kind of stuff, so we just incorporated that.”
After 27 exuberant performances, Daniel remarks, “It’s such a wonderful celebration of words, of community, of the youth that we work with. It’s a wonderful mix of intellect, of ideas, and creativity. It truly celebrates poetry. Even though it’s just freshmen up there, it’s still a really great community night, and it’s really inspiring.”
