Poets battle with words, rhythm at first-ever slam
By Bill Morrison
Staff Reporter

When some people think of poetry, images of smoke-filled coffee houses come to mind where bongos play in rhythm with the words and snapping fingers follow the poet’s lyrical styling. This didn’t happen in the Student Center Lounge Tuesday night.

At the first-ever TCU Poetry Slam, sponsored by Programming Coucil, students were entertained with poems written by other students and professional poets, covering topics from love to the environment. The poems were then judged on a scale of one to 10.

Andrew McCollough, a junior secondary education major, emerged as the winner. His poems about topics such as peace, Sept. 11, persecution and capitalism, were presented in a hip-hop style. McCollough said his poems are about the words, not the gimmicks seen in much of today’s music.

“I write about what I see,” McCollough said. “I try to write what people go through.”

McCollough said winning felt good, because he was being acknowledged for what he wrote.

Taylor Mali, a former teacher and professional poet, gained the crowd’s attention with his prose, then turned the microphone over to the student poets. Seven students competed in the poetry slam. As the event went on the crowd grew from 50 to more than 100, with students standing in the walkways.

The master of ceremonies was Mali, who has won the national Poetry Slam four times and tours across the nation hosting and competing in poetry slams. He said a slam is different from typical poetry venues because of the competition aspect. The addition of judges and a winner makes a slam more interesting, he said.

“The competition brings the crowd out of the woodwork,” Mali said. “People like to disagree with a judge.”

Mali said the judges aren’t professional poets or English professors, but that they are simply three people from the audience. He said a judge does not have to know about writing to know if they like or dislike what the poet had to say.

“Slam is a performance piece. You don’t read a poem, you become the piece,” said A.J. Houston of the Fort Worth National Slam Team. “What’s great about slam is when you experience it. You say ‘Wow, I can write like that.’”

Glenn Pfenninger, a senior sports psychology major, was one of the students who went to the national association of campus activities where PC saw Mali perform. He said one of the reasons PC chose him was because slam was original.

Steven Becker, a sophomore management, finance and accounting major, was in charge of the event and said the event went very well. He said Mali did a great job of getting the audience involved. He said there was more interest in the competition than he had expected.

“Because of word-of-mouth, I knew that a lot of people knew about it (the poetry slam), but the turnout exceeded what I had expected,” Becker said. “It was definitely successful enough to continue.”

Bill Morrison