Poetry slam attracts large audience, showcases students' creativity

On Friday, Oct. 18, the Union held an "Around the World" event, hosting activities from different countries. In the city of Paris, France, which was located at the Commons, a Poetry Slam contest was held.\n"Poetry Slam is a competition in which you sign up to read your poetry. Then, five people who are selected from the audience judge you. The highest scores and the lowest scores are cut from moving on to the next round. The average of the scores are allowed to move on to the next round," said Jessica Williams-Gibson, director of the Fine Arts Committee.\nThe Fine Arts committee works with the IMU attractions and events committee in putting together fun events for students all making "IU Late Night" at the Union possible.\n"We started signing people up at 9 and had to shut off the sign up list at around 9:30. The competitors read their work, and do free-style for about three minutes before they are asked to stop," said Michelle St. Angelo, assistant director of the Fine Arts committee.\n"Poetry Slam is all part of Late Night and is just a fun thing for students to do," St. Angelo said. "Besides having the Slam, we also have an open mic night where students can just read their poetry and are not judged."\nAbout 23 people signed up for the slam and six people signed up for the open mic night. The Poetry Slam list was shut off at 9:30 p.m., but the open mic was not. The reason that the slam had to be cut off was there were three rounds, and the slam ended at 11:30 p.m. In round one, all 23 performed. In round two, the list was cut down to seven, and by round three, only the top four read their poetry. The winner was then declared. The winner received a $100 gift certificate to the IU Bookstore.\nThe five randomly picked judges were chosen from the audience. A 10 was given for the best, and a zero for worst. The objective was to be fair, and the host declared, "poets were to check their ego at the door."\nTameka Pates, a first time slammer, decided at first that she was only going to do the open mic, but then she changed her mind and decided to slam. \n"I write poetry about stuff that happens in my life," Pates said. "Tonight, I slammed about what happens when you do something with a friend that you know you should not have done but did it anyways."\nPates is an education major who writes her own poetry for fun but had never done a slam before.\n"I have this whole book of poetry, but I have never been judged upon it," she said.\nAnother slammer, Ethan Bull, has done many poetry slams and has not done as well as he hoped. He said he hoped this time to have a better outcome than he has had in the past. \n"I am here to get my pride back and wrote a straight up slam poem tonight," Bull said. "A straight up slam poem is the way of how you speak your words throughout the poem."\nBull was an English major and is now a first year graduate student in English education. He writes poems with a stream of consciousness and randomness.\nA special guest took part in the slam contest at the union as well. Mums, from HBO's Oz was the host of the Poetry Slam. \n"I have been slamming for a while and have done one or two slams in the city," Mums said.\nMums opened with one of his own theological poems, and then sprinkled his poetry throughout the contest, while the judges were judging the slammers, and also ended with a poem.