Brave Voices

This week in Poetry class, we were preparing for our upcoming poetry slam. To prepare we watched several performances of poetry slammers in the past. The poets came from all walks of life, and represented all emotions that you could possibly imagine. The idea of a poetry slam is that regular people get together. They do not necessarily need to be professional poets, and the idea is that people who are everyday citizens can come together and show off their literary, specifically poetic talents. My poetry class will feature our poems at our Poetry Slam on Wednesday at 9:50 in the basement of Carpenter Hall.

When I was watching TV this weekend, I stumbled across a Teen Poetry Slam on HBO. Typically I would probably just skip over it on a Saturday night at 11, but because we have been watching poetry slams I decided to tune in.

What I saw really inspired me. There were teen poets from all across this nation not just competing for the top prize, but also presenting their work so that the rest of society could appreciate their words. It was great because the poetry was very personal, and I was so inspired that teens could write such great poetry. Having taken the SAT's that morning, I especially liked a poem that ridiculed the SAT's for stealing our money.

Being a teenager I know that life, at times, can be very complicated because of social issues in our lives. Decisions, relationships, etc. can make our lives at times a living hell. These poets were able to put those emotions into words and really were brave in putting forth some really deep, personal and powerful messages about complicated things such as school, sexuality, family etc. That's why this series on HBO was called Brave New Voices.

These poets try to explain things to adults that they don't understand. They scream things that they need to get off their chests. They profess their opinions to people that though they may not agree they will listen. They try to explain things that though they are unconventional, they think should be normal. They open your mind to things that you may have never thought about before and give you a sense of people's struggles through things like gender confusion, racism, violence, and hate. Please watch these videos that I found very moving. Let your eyes be opened: