Alliance High’s Slam Poetry Club, headed by new Sophomore English teacher Beth Carver, competed in the 2013 Louder than a Bomb competition. Miss Carver was introduced to the competition when she had student taught in Lincoln and helped coach the students there who competed. When AHS principal Pat Jones sent Carver an email about the upcoming competition in March of 2013, she decided to round up a group of interested students and form an AHS Slam Poetry Club with only two months until the competition in Omaha, Nebraska.
The “Louder than a Bomb” slam poetry competition for high school- aged students originated in Chicago in 2001. After the Twin Towers fell in the September 11 terrorist attack, some Americans blamed the entire Muslim population. In Chicago the City Council even attempted to pass an anti-gang loitering law directed at the Muslims and Arabic people.. The law violated the First Amendment rights of the targeted populations and inspired a desire and for concerned students to make their voices heard. The “Louder than a Bomb” contest was conceived to provide the students who were affected by this law, and any others interested in using poetry to express themselves, a chance to band together and get their thoughts and feelings out in the form of a poetry festival. The idea eventually spread worldwide and is now the biggest celebration of poetry and creativity around the world.
In “Louder than a Bomb” competitions students write poems called slam poems. When writing a slam poem, the student must keep two things in mind: to whom the poem is going to be addressed and in whose perspective it is going to be written. Most often the poem is written from the poet’s perspective and will address someone of influence in his or her life in order to affect change. Some of the most common topics for these poems are relationships, drug problems, or regrets.
The Alliance Slam Poetry team’s group piece, on the other hand, was written about several openly gay men who, after being constantly bullied chose suicide. The poem was addressed toward anti-gay activists and addresses a very controversial topic in the United States, with anti-gay marriage laws being both proposed and repealed in several states. In the end, the group’s poem seemed to leave a lasting impression on the audience and earned the group a standing ovation in their first round.
The competition in which the Alliance team had competed was held in Omaha, Nebraska, on March 24. This was merely the preliminary round, in which the number one team in each “bout” is chosen to compete later on a higher-level. In a bout, all of the individual and group performances of a selected set of teams are presented and rated by the five unbiased judges who are chosen before the bout began.
The semifinals this year was held on April 6 in Omaha and was viewed online across the country, however, Alliance’s team did not make it to the semi-finals in either of their rounds. In the first bout, which had 4 teams competing, Alliance earned third, just under the second place team by two tenths of a point. In their second bout, they also earned the third place title.
This year’s competition was a great learning experience for the group and the decision has been unanimous within the group that they will return to the competition next year. All who were involved agreed that it was a moving experience in which the students had the opportunity to perform in front of an exceptional audience, to hear pieces delivered by others with far more experience in the competition, and to meet and socialize with students they normally may not. Above all, it serves as a great way to celebrate writing, to express emotions, and to just enjoy poetry.
