Personal, powerful, poetry…

KELLOGG — Kellogg High School’s creative writing class hosted the first Silver Valley Poetry Slam at Radio Brewing last week.

Slam poetry is a form of performance poetry that combines the elements of performance, writing, competition, and audience participation.

It is performed at events called “poetry slams,” or simply “slams.”

The name slam came from how the audience has the power to praise, or sometimes, destroy a poem and from the high-energy performance style of the poets.

10 KHS students and teachers performed for the large crowd at the popular local brewery and the event was received as a huge success.

“The poetry slam went incredibly well,” KHS creative writing teacher Kelton Enich said. “There were almost sixty people who showed up, standing room only in the back garden of Radio Brewing. Participants were judged on the performance of their spoken word poetry, a genre that is based on the aesthetics of wordplay and literary devices. Slam poetry employs the use of rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, metaphor, and simile to make a point about something that is oftentimes powerful, controversial, or to make a comment about some component of today's society.”

What makes a poetry slam (a lot) more fun than a regular poetry reading is how the crowd can, and is, expected to get involved.

“Audience participation was highly encouraged and while people ordered food, they also cheered, hooted and hollered to support the readers and the points they made,” Enich said. “We had three randomly selected judges from the audience, one student, one teacher, and one community member who gave a score of 1-10 for each performance which were later averaged to determine the winner.”

Students were not the only winners either. A teacher got into the top three, while two younger writers tied for the top spot at the inaugural event.

Enich was also pleased at the wide range of topics used by the poets.

“Teacher Paul Roberts won third place with his poem about how the term ‘drama’ is used in today's society and freshman Christian Carlson and sophomore Trevor Haston tied for first place,” he said. “Christian read his poem comparing life to a fairy-tale and how it's alright to not have a perfect ending. Trevor read his poem about suicide awareness, saying, ‘I am a punching bag made of love, not sand."

Following the event, Enich elaborated on just how much went into to preparing for the event, which makes what the students and other performers accomplished even more impressive.

“In order to prepare, we watched a lot of examples of slam poetry online and brainstormed different topics to write about,” he explained. “Each poem went through several drafts of revision and were practiced in front of the class to add emotion, hand gestures, or memorization. I'm hoping next year it's going to be even bigger and better. It's so amazing to provide a place where young people can voice their opinions and concerns in a way that is artistic and creative.”

The concept of slam poetry originated in the 1980s in Chicago, Illinois, when a local poet and construction worker, Marc Kelly-Smith, feeling that poetry readings and poetry in general had lost their true passion, had an idea to bring poetry back to the people.

Kelly-Smith created a weekly poetry event, the poetry slam, where anyone could participate. Poets would perform their work and then be judged by five random audience members on a scale of 0 to 10.

Out of the five, the highest and lowest scores were dropped and the three remaining scores were added to give the poet an overall score.

Whoever had the highest score at the end of the competition was deemed the winner.

Here is an example of one of the students' poems that was read at the event:

A Letter to Idaho

Dear Idaho, even as I look out my window

and see a beautiful jade forest,

the sun not yet radiant on the branchy timber,

and even as I think of the pitter patter of rain

as it's voyage ends on my front lawn,

I regret to inform you that I am NOT a permanent resident.

At least, I don’t hope to be.

As proud as I am to call you my birthplace,

there's little I wish more than to see the world

from more than one angle, one little side,

little I wish less to see than only 4/50 of my home country,

a fraction of a fraction of the world.

When I board my very first plane, whatever pretty hurricane

would pull me in before,

will only be the wind beneath my wings,

as I leave this land like it’s grown stale.

It’s not like I dislike these trees,

and I’m a sucker for the purple sunsets, but it wouldn’t be a shame

to catch a glimpse of them sinking into a city skyline,

sky lined with clouds that I’ve left behind in Idaho.

Maybe it’s naive too, to think I can just leave it all behind,

no feelings, no lack of money being the rope that holds me down,

but with just an urge to see more, I’ll tear that rope apart.

If I’ve seen anything from those few borders I’ve crossed,

it’s that these puddles I like watching ripple in the rainfall

can be anywhere when the forecast calls for them like a whistle,

so if it’s safe to say that beauty is global,

then farewell, please.

Sincerely, Jaxon.