On Tuesday, May 21st Colonia High School’s Poetry Club competed in the second annual Woodbridge Township School District Poetry Slam against Woodbridge and John F. Kennedy; The Barron Arts Center hosted the poetry slam.
The contest consisted of three different poets from each of the high schools. Colonia’s poets included: sophomore, Devon Savage, along with seniors, Tenomewah “Lynette” Murray, and Kristen Sieranski. From John F. Kennedy, the poets were Rosalyn Jones, Matthew Sylvester, and Jordan Wells. Representing Woodbridge High was Precious Akinbo, Sarah Raicers, and Katherine Marciniak.
The rules of the slam were simple, the poem had to be written by the competitor each poem and would be scored by three judges on a scale from zero to ten, and ten being the highest; decimals were allowed to be added to the score as well. The poem that the contestants were reciting had to be under or around three minutes long. And absolutely, no props or musical instruments were allowed to be used in order to enhance the performance.
There were a total of three judges who were also poets; they consisted of Nicole Greenwood, Sykes Hartmann, and Donel. Each of the judges’ scores was based on performance, memorization of the poem, stage presence, and the overall feel of the poem. The night’s Emcee was the two time nationally competing slam poet, Chris Rockwell. The slam program coordinator was Deborah LaVeglia. LaVeglia has been published in many poetry journals and has been the director of the Poets Wednesday Poetry Series.
To start off the slam, the three students of JFK went first, then WHS, and lastly CHS. Starting for CHS was Savage reading his poem Untitled, it received a score of 27.5. After was Murray, she recited her poem Black Boy Fly and was awarded the highest number of points for Colonia of 28.5. This was the only poem of the night to receive a perfect 10 from one of the judges. Sieranksi was the last in the first round to preform her poem Untitled, she got a score of 26.6.
After the first round, the top three scorers from each of the high schools moved onto the final round. The top scores were Murray, Wells, and Raicers. Wells, recited Her, and got a total score of 26.6. Next was Woodbridge’s Raices, her poem was Untitled, and she picked up 27.2 points. Finally Murray was up; she performed her poem, and she was given 27.1 points.
The winner of the poetry slam was Raices by one tenth of a point. Last Year, Colonia won and took home the title with poet, Jonathan Charles. This year, Colonia went against great poets but Woodbridge came out .1 stronger than Colonia.
A special thanks for Mayor John E. McCormac, Mr. Thomas Leusen, the Supervisor of English, Media Centers, and ESL/Bilingual Programs, and Ms. Joann Ball for organizing the Poetry Slam. Mayor McCormac congratulated all participants in the slam with a certificate.
It was a great event and all of the contestants are looking forward to next year. Will Colonia come back and steal the title from Woodbridge? Or will John F. Kennedy come and take the title from both schools?
