MIDDLE SCHOOL POETRY SLAM
Poetry has the uncanny ability to take a class and turn them into a community. St. Peter’s middle school ELA and Lit students, taught by Mrs. Picchiotti and Mrs. Ryg, have been learning about poetry in class – both writing and analyzing poems. Through poetry, the students have been vulnerable, funny, caring, and supportive of each other through each step of the process.
One of the assignments was to write a spoken word poem. A spoken word poem is an original poem that shares a message and is meant to be more personal and performed in front of an audience. After the students saw many examples of this type of poetry online, they created their poems, practiced and evaluated each other, and then presented them in class. Another assignment was to memorize and present a previously published poem by another author. Students were not able to use notes to assist with this presentation.
All of this culminated in a Poetry Slam held in the MAC on Thursday, April 29. Each student in middle school had the chance to participate for prizes and extra credit in class. The participants could choose to use the previously published poem that they had memorized for class or memorize and perform their original, spoken word poems. The students presented their poems in front of the middle school and 5th-grade students.
Participants in the previously published category were Thea Bond, Ava McQuade, Julia Pedersen, June Fay, and Colten Hilgers. Participants in the spoken word category were Annabelle Pchola, Caleb Bialeschki, Kaitlyn Stoeckel, Abby Homoly, and Grayson Atienza. The students did a phenomenal job, showing poise, talent, and confidence as they presented their poems with vulnerability and courage.
7th grader Colten Hilgers won for the previously published category where he performed the poem “On Quitting” by Edgar Guest. 6th grader Annabelle Pchola won the spoken word category with her poem “Pain. Truth. Anger. Lies.”
The Poetry Slam was an excellent occasion to display the equal parts talent and character of the St. Peter middle schoolers. It was a wonderful experience for all involved, an example of the true community of the St. Peter students, and showed the power that poetry can have to unite groups of people.
