The month of April is Poetry Month and students all over the country are celebrating.  With poetry slams sweeping the nation it can be hard to believe that Oak Park doesn’t have a Slam poetry club.  For those of you who don’t know what a poetry slam is let the National Education Association explain it to you.

“[poetry slams are] writers performing works in competition, before panels of judges”, courtesy of nea.org.

Poetry slams usually consist of different teams; in high school those teams consist of schools.  Students write their own poems and practice them for weeks or even months before a competition.  Poems can be performed solo or in doubles and even small groups. Each competition is different but for most, students will perform their piece in front of an audience and judges will score on a scale between one and ten.  Those scores are then announced immediately following the performance and the highest scores of the competition will either perform again or win the competition.

For most schools this is an after school club that is most often related to debate.  Oak Park has a debate team but we lack a Slam Poetry Club that competes with other schools.  After investigating further, a poll was conducted to see if this was something Oak Park even wanted.  Several students responded with positive remarks and many students said they would even consider participating.  So maybe a poetry club wouldn’t be that bad of an idea?

Poetry slams are not only clubs that give you something to do but it’s also a way to gain self-confidence and learn to speak out against certain injustices.  Many students use the stage as a platform to bring light to specific topics that bother them and other people in their community. Whether that is minority rights, climate change, opinions on our current president, abusive relationships or anything else that comes to mind.

If you want some ideas of what a good poetry slam looks like go to www.youthspeaks.org for videos and more information on festivals or watch the documentary “Louder Than a Bomb”.

So what do you think? Should Oak Park have a Slam poetry club? Fill out the poll and let us know in the comments.