Slam!
Students at Barrie use poetry to express the thoughts and feelings of 21st century adolescence
by Michael Zwelling
May 2007
It may be said that high school is the place poetry goes to die, but at least one local middle school is trying to see that doesn't happen.
Students at The Barrie School, a private, independent school in Silver Spring, held their inaugural poetry slam, Slamsation 2007, on Saturday, April 21--with the hope of turning it into an annual event that would include several schools from around the region.
Many of the poets spoke of teen issues such as appearance, family life and the desire to be wanted and needed, and the fear of being neither.
One student, 13-year-old Kara Fannon, slammed with conviction, passion and determination, in her poem "Hating America."
She didn't try to convey the sentiment as her feelings toward her home, but instead the confusion and desperate need to understand by today's youth.
She hit on several issues in today's news including the situation in the Sudan, homelessness in America, the war in Iraq and the push to "go green" while continuing to consume.
After her poem she sat, crossed her arms around her stomach, and spoke of her nervousness about her performance.
"I just wanted everyone to know there are a lot of us who don't even know what Darfur is, we hear the news that makes us worry and a lot of my classmates don't even know what's going on," she said.
Her mother Michelle spoke cautiously about Kara's performance, saying she grew up in a military family and that her upbringing would never have allowed for the same expression.
"I may have written something in my journal, but would have never said it out loud," said Michelle Fannon, who added a conversation three years ago changed the way she thought of her daughter's awareness of world events and politics.
"She said to me 'mom you have no idea what we go through, you weren't a kid on 9-11,'" said Michelle.
"She thinks of a lot of the complexities of life, that's certainly something different from when I was her age," she said.
Michelle and Kara also understood what a poetry slam is for and the value of firm expression.
And expression is what a poetry slam is all about.
A poetry slam is a competitive event where poets perform their work and are judged by members of the audience.
Normally, the slam host selects the judges, who are instructed to give numerical scores on a scale of one to 10 based on the poets' content and performance.
"The intent is, the first time the poets' work is ever expressed is when it is spoken out loud, in a competitive environment," said Poet Taylor Mali, guest poet at the slam.
Mali is very familiar with poetry slams, winning four national championships and serving as a past president of the national organization.
Though the rules may be adapted and modified in some events the basics guidelines are relatively simple.
Each poem must be of the poet's own construction; each poet gets three minutes -- plus a ten-second grace period -- to read one poem, if the poet goes over, points will be deducted from the total score; and the poet may not use props, costumes, or musical instruments, according to Poetry Slam Inc.
Mali, who also worked as a teacher for many years, has used poetry slams as a way of reaching his goal of creating 1,000 teachers from the students he reaches through event's like Barrie's.
He also said he had never been to a slam like Barrie's, where the event was organized and conducted by such a young group of students, something else that could bode well for the future of the spoken word.
The winner of the weekend's event was Robert Mulvey, a 13-year-old eighth grader who spoke of the issues surrounding his peer group.
One of his poems looked at three aspects of teen life: Perfection, the slick, well dressed cool persona; Envy, the opposite character, slimy, sneaky and conniving; and Loss, the baby who has no knowledge and is defenseless.
While delivering his poem he used strong hand gestures, changed the tone and volume of his voice while using facial expressions to pull the audience into his world.
He spoke of the battle within all teens to grab hold of the three and finally having to choose between what to accept in terms of the three emotions and what to shun away from.
"I obviously have a problem because I'm trying too hard to be perfect and that's a battle I can never win because perfection is not achievable." he said of his poem.
"There's a lot of teen angst about perfection, sometimes we lose sight of who we really are or what we can be because we're too worried about reaching the goal of being someone else."
His mother Kathleen O'Reilly, who performed in similar events while in college in the 1970s, said the performance from the normally quiet young man surprised her.
"This is totally different side of him," she said.
"He's very much into classical ballet and tends to blend into the background at times."
"Today he stepped forward, came out of the shadows and made his voice heard."
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