Louder Than A Bomb Success
and the importance of slam poetry
Sophie Terian, Trinity Ball, Daniel Vazquez, Shawna Smith and Noelle Eland pose before the competition begins.
March 9, 2018
I am excited to announce that this year our Louder Than A Bomb competitive slam poetry team took second place at our first tournament, qualifying us for semifinals and giving us an amazing opportunity to perform!
Lincoln College Preparatory Academy took a well deserved first place and will also be advancing to finals.
Because I am a member of the Louder Than A Bomb team, this report cannot uphold journalistic objectivity standards. This is, instead, an opinionated discussion of slam poetry’s place in society.
I think the first time people hear good slam poetry they’ll usually be blown off their feet. Slam poetry is a flowing, rhyming, syncopated, emotional, eloquent and persuasive outpouring of words. You sit down and listen and someone sputters out three minutes of pretty sounds, paradoxes, metaphors and parallels and somewhere in all that you’re hit with a big important message delivered in a beautiful, carefully crafted package. It’s a lot of potent emotion, and that’s inherently powerful.
But the real beauty in slam is its ability to inspire, change and discuss issues we are often hesitant to face. Slam poets tackle issues with unabashed freedom of speech. Slam poets don’t worry about political correctness, unlike the politicians we all get tired of hearing. They speak what they see and feel and never apologize for even the most brutal honesty.
Through slam poetry, poverty goes from a statistic muttered by the lips of a man on a TV to a real, throbbing issue painted in a language human hearts hear, for real. Heartbreak goes from something often brushed aside as teenage drama to an authenticated and important part of the human existence. No one wants to hear the sharp imagery of rape, but when we do, we are more moved than ever to prevent its occurrence.
Since the previous century, our appreciation of poetry’s place in society seems to be dwindling, but Louder Than A Bomb reminds me that poets have always been important been societal critics. Written poetry used to be published in daily papers, respected, revered and recited, expressing concise and impassioned opinions that audiences considered and respected. Though that may be less common today, the potential impact has not lessened. Written poetry is quieter in its critique of the world. If we want our poetry to be heard in our noisy, fast paced world, today’s poets need to be louder than a bomb.
