By Camille Kelly | Reporter
For the past three years, Intercultural Engagement has hosted Sic ‘Em Slam, a slam poetry event open to students and staff to perform original slam poems in the Bill Daniel Student Center. This year’s slam was part of Civil Discourse Week, and students took the opportunity to share personal stories, reflections and political calls to action through their slam poem performances.
Red River, N.M., freshman Sofia West performed her original slam poem, “Glimpses of Myself,” a self-reflective piece about identity and allowing yourself to change.
Although she has been writing poetry since seventh grade, this was West’s first time doing slam poetry.
“Of course, you can speak and memorize and perform regular poetry, but I think what sets slam poetry apart is it is really like a performance,” West said. “It’s not just reading to you or telling you a poem. It’s very much an experience. They’re trying to get you to envision it with them.”
Houston sophomore Yasmina Haddad has also been writing poetry since middle school. She took this opportunity at the Sic ‘Em Slam to perform her original slam poem, “Pick Up a Fire Extinguisher,” a call-to-action work that addresses the current political landscape in the U.S.
“I’m a political science major, and honestly, I’ve been overwhelmed with all the political things going on in the country,” Haddad said. “This was a way for me to finally express that through art. My piece was to compel people to not be ‘not political.’ I think they should know that, in my opinion, is parallel to being apathetic. People should care more.”
West and Haddad both heard about Sic ‘Em Slam through their What’s New BU weekly emails. For each of them, using the art form of slam poetry was a deeper way to communicate something more complex.
“With poetry, you’re telling a story, but you’re telling it so symbolically,” West said. “If you’re writing a memoir, or a biography, it’s very literal, sharing, ‘These were the events of my story.’ But with poetry, it’s a lot more obscure, so it’s vulnerable, but you don’t have to tell the person exactly what it is. It allows you to have that vulnerability without feeling afraid.”
Both Haddad and West were inspired by the use of slam poetry alongside Civil Discourse Week to bring up political conversations in a respectful yet direct way.
“A lot of my writing has always been about self-reflection, but I was really inspired by a lot of the people that I performed with that did politically charged pieces,” West said. “A stereotype of slam poetry is that it’s very aggressive and always political. However, I think they did it in the way I want to, which is edifying us as a nation. Not aggressive toward the other side, but not shying away from it or from real things that are going on in our country.”
