On January 16, Upper School students in Mr. Cerpa’s Honors Contemporary Poetry Seminar and Ms. Tinsley-Beavers’s Honors African-American Poetry Seminar shared their original poems at the first annual We Speak Together Poetry Slam.

To prepare, students studied different poetic styles such as call-and-response, collective voice, and improvisation. Reading scholarly criticism helped students understand how layering ideas and perspectives enables spoken word to deliver nuanced themes. Putting the genre in context, students in Ms. Tinsley-Beavers' class also learned about key moments in African American history, from the poetic brilliance of enslaved Africans to the creative and markedly revolutionary Black Arts Movement, which used highly rhythmic, non-traditional forms and varying tones for emphasis. In Mr. Cerpa’s class, students were given the opportunity to engage with contemporary poetry collections and formally inventive responses to literature through Tyehimba Jess' Olio and analyze the trajectory of a poet's career through the work of Elizabeth Bishop. This semester we have created, explored and discussed the amazing ways poets respond to the world. 

At the poetry slam, each original poem offered a glimpse into the minds of our student poets, who delved into themes of identity, friendship, perseverance, and hope. The event gave students a platform to practice this year’s all-school theme of COURAGE and to express their thoughts, emotions, and personal experiences in front of a supportive audience of peers and teachers.

We Speak Together celebrates the courage of young writers who have taken poetry seminars and use language to question, witness, and imagine. Each poem performed reflected vulnerability, craft, and conviction, which was modeled through the work of others and inspired students to create their own. Together, these voices demonstrate that poetry is not solitary, but communal.

—Andres Cerpa, Upper School English Teacher; Grade 11 Dean and Sakita Tinsley-Beavers, Upper School English Teacher; Social Justice Coordinator for Upper School