Jefferson Poets, Jefferson’s poetry club, held their first Slam Poetry event on January 29th. It served as a way for students to showcase poems they had written while practicing the form of Slam Poetry. The club also held a mini workshop to help prepare the performers before the event.

“We showed some videos of slam poetry performances so that people who hadn’t ever seen it could get an idea of what it’s like. Then we had some time for people to free write and brainstorm ideas together,” club president and senior Meera Gupta said.

Senior Quentin Lovejoy appreciated this workshop, as it allowed him to recognize the best parts of the professional poems they listened to and utilize them in his own poem and performance.

“We discussed what we noticed in the poems, such as good imagery and metaphors, and it allowed me to internalize that and carry it over to my own poem,” Lovejoy said. 

A main focus for Gupta and the other officers was to make sure that the event would have a non-competitive environment and be a judgement free zone. 

“We’ve hosted competitions in the past, but the objective for this is to be more of a sharing event and slam poetry is a really powerful way for people to share their own stories. We want this to be a space where people can do that in a judgement free zone and hear what people have to say,” Gupta said.

This decision seems to have paid off, as freshman Riva Jain enjoyed the more informal and non-competitive style in which the event was run. 

“I really enjoy[ed] the casual environment because it’s a little less nerve wracking [compared] to a more [strict] and competitive environment. Another thing about the more casual feel is that it felt more like I was part of a community as we had a lot of fun together listening to our poems,” Jain said.

Overall, the Slam Poetry event was largely a positive experience and Lovejoy can’t wait for the next.

“I’m really excited to continue going to events such as this held by Jefferson Poets in the future,” Lovejoy said.