Poetry is a form of writing where anyone can express their feelings and emotions into words that comes out in a way that makes sense to the writer.  

Slam poetry is meant to be performed so the individual is releasing their emotions, thoughts, and expressions. Meant to be seen and performed. Ms. Deragisch and Ms. Loza, who are forefronting the event, are both excited that the district is sponsoring the event.

“Yes I’m very excited, I think it’s going to be a great opportunity for students to not only perform original poetry, but also see students from around the district, perform and it’s also for anyone who wants to learn about slam poetry and spoken word poetry,” Loza said.

As a district sponsored event there are some rules and restrictions, no swearing, no props, original, must relate to theme, and a maximum of 3 minutes. The way they developed the rules was making it open in some form, but may not let someone express themselves the way they’d prefer, but as a district sponsored event some younger people are likely to attend.

Slam poetry can be emotional as it’s a way of someone to express their feelings and thoughts, from a string of bad days, losing a loved one, or even just to remember a fond memory.

“So slam poetry is a really great way for people to kinda get together and celebrate poetry out loud, so instead of seeing it on paper you see kind of a performance, and it has a competition element, so it’s even better than just poetry by itself because you’re competing to see which poems the most interesting, the most exciting, the ones that kinda get people to feel the most and it’s judged, by judges based on more than anything  kind of how they perceive it, how did they feel when they’re watching it, when they’re hearing it,” says Deragisch.

The whole idea for the poetry slam competition, came from when Sarah Kay, a word spoken artist, visited the district during the summer, for an equity conference, from that to helping kids develop poems and work-shopping them. From that the district liked the idea of poetry and wanted to continue her work, spawning the idea of a slam poetry competition.