The East library is known for being a quiet refuge of study for students who want to work on assignments without any distractions or noise. On a typical school day, Librarian Chris Larson or a number of parent volunteers can be found working patiently behind the main desk helping anyone who needs to find a particular book or resource. But on April 16th, this literary haven will become center stage to the second annual “Shawnee Mission East Poetry Slam,” which will be anything but silent.
This year’s poetry slam promotional video. Courtesy of librarian Ms. Larson.
Originating at Shawnee Mission Northwest, the poetry slam is a competition that allows students to stand before a live audience and literally perform “slam” poetry that they have written just for the event. The entire concept of “slam” poetry is that the delivery and verbal telling of each freeform poetry piece is just as important as the writing itself. While the Slam is headed up by Ms. Larson , English and Writer’s Workshop teacher Laura Beachy has encouraged all of her students to participate, and even had some of her classes write practice “slam” poetry pieces.
“A lot of the thoughts and emotions, and experiences that are expressed in slam poetry are not ones that just appear casually in daily conversation,” Beachy said.
While many are participating just for fun, or to try something new, the slam is still a judged contest with prizes and advancement to the district competition on the line. This competition aspect is where Beachy really thinks things will get interesting, especially considering how very few entrants have ever done something of this nature before.
“It takes a lot of courage to perform, because you really are opening yourself up to the audience in some very significant ways, and people don’t tend to do that.” Beachy said.
While the works performed often range from the dramatic and brooding to comedic and sidesplitting, contestants will all be judged on criteria based on both the poem and performance of it. In the first round, the judges will give each contestant a raw score of 1-10, and the highest scores will continue on to the next round where they will perform a second piece. The winner of this round will go on to the district contest where they will face the best slam poets from each of the Shawnee Mission high schools.
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