Mock Slam Makes A Slam Dunk

Lilly Molini

Staff Writer

On February 17th, Waverly Slam Poetry team held a mock bout.

Many schools attended the meet such as South East, Lincoln High, North Star, as well as Waverly.

The intentions behind the mock bout was to have all of the new authors understand and experience what a real bout is like.

The teams performed snippets of their poems, sharing only a minute of their writing. In these samples, student slam poets showed their originality with poems some had made up only minutes before. Others shared more personal poems that tugged at the audience’s heart strings and some comedians shared more comical poems anyone would laugh at.

Before performing for their audience, the schools were split into groups of new people who all had the same interest: slamming. The groups were led by people who pursue slam poetry for their profession. When they split into these workshops, everyone gave constructive criticism to help improve their writing.

“The workshops were very helpful, and I learned lots of new useful information that will help me in the future,” sophomore Adriea Grossman said.

When the performing began, five tributes were volunteered to judge their fellow poets. For every round, the lowest and highest scores from the judges are dropped to eliminate controversy.

When the performances began.. although the competition was just mock.. the judges took it seriously and knew just what they were doing.

Everyone that performed had such charismatic voices and word choice and anyone that wasn’t there missed out. Poetry is a wonderful thing everyone should at least respect.

Waverly’s Slam Team will perform next on March 24 at UNO and again on April 1. Anyone interested in anything about Waverly’s Slam Team or information about their upcoming competitions can contact sponsor Kelly Bielenberg.