Poetry Reading

Over thanksgiving break, I attended a Poetry Slam, put on by my former high school English teacher for his current students. He opened the event with a poem of his own. I have always liked his poetry because he incorporates much free verse rhyming, which he uses to emulate a hip-hop style of poetry. His piece is about an elevated level of consciousness that he has been experience over his life’s frustrations as a middle-aged adult and as a teacher. It turns political for a moment, when he begins cursing the California budget crisis and the cuts that are being made to educational establishments.

After he finished, the competition began. It consisted of a playoff-style tournament, with succeeding rounds, of eight or ten high school students. I was surprised at the quality of the student’s poetry. Most of it was free verse, and focused on the burden of being a teenage high school student. Struggles that included being subjected rigorous expectations of their classes, pending college admissions and social acceptance amongst their peers. When I read poetry for analysis, as I did in the Seagull Reader, I usually find it hard to garner a substantive understanding of the piece without reading it twice. When hearing poetry aloud, I find it difficult to understand the poetry when only hearing it once. As a result, especially in the poetry slam context, I focus more on the performance itself of the poems, rather than delving to deep into the actual poetic conventions. Most of the students were member of the drama department at school. Since the slam was taking place on the same stage that the students rehearsed on everyday for their class’s plays, they seemed to be more than comfortable under the lights on stage. Their performances were animated, and they paced about the stage yelling their numerous grievances out into the crowd.

The overall experience was quite enjoyable and I think that I will look for more poetry slams to attend on campus at Michigan. The performance aspect of poetry slams differentiates it from regular poetry appreciation because the emotion can be conveyed through the delivery as well as the words.