As the lunch bell chimes early at 11:20 AM on Fridays, upwards of twenty students crowd into room 325 to participate in Esquimalt High’s Slam Poetry Club.
Slam poetry offers some great opportunities such as the chance to battle it out in spoken word competition, and being supported if you shy away from the spotlight.
The term “Slam” actually refers to competitions where individuals perform original poems of a maximum of 3 minutes in length to be rated by judges in the audience. The club chose the name for simplicity, but members share anything from haikus to pages of prose, and don’t necessarily need to compete.
Slam Team
Esquimalt High School has sent students as a team to participate in Hullabaloo, a spoken word festival held in Greater Vancouver. Recently they placed 4th of 12 schools from all over B.C., an excellent achievement that brought even more pride to the creative community already thriving here at the school.
Love, loss, poetry and Star Wars
Competing is not for everyone, though, and the Slam Club recognizes this. Its main goal is to support personal expression through writing and to inspire everyone to fall in love with poetry. It’s hard to miss the creative energy that immediately fills the classroom as members share their work.
The club’s past master of ceremonies Chloe Mumford (EHS Grad ’14) says:
Slam has developed into something really amazing over the past few years. It is a brilliant opportunity to find a safe place to share art and appreciate the beauty of the human consciousness collectively.
Slam welcomes students in all grades with interests and passions that serve as inspiration for their writing.
Find out more through the Victoria Poetry Project