Thirty students from all the PPS high schools rocked the Mission Theater during the first city-wide slam poetry competition, Verselandia! Three students from each school (who had won their school’s playoffs) had three minutes each to perform an original poem. Names were drawn at random from a fishbowl and a panel of five judges held up scorecards after each performance.

This was no poetry reading. With a rowdy crowd, an energetic host (the fantastic Anis Mojgani, whose performances on YouTube can bring people to tears), and students with impressive stage presence, it was an entertaining evening. But beyond that, the amount of heart each poet put into their work–including every messy emotion a person can feel–often moved the audience to their feet. There were tales of roller derby bravery, explanations of the perks of dating a nerd, and one student even asked another student to prom.

After the first round, the fifteen students with the highest scores performed a second piece. Then while the judges tallied the scores, Anis Mojgani performed two poems. For all the performances, the audience listened in pin-drop silence, gasped, murmured in agreement, and burst into applause.

Finally, five winners were selected. The two runners-up received $250 gift cards to NorthFace and the three winners received iPads. (Thanks to our generous sponsors!) Congratulations to not only the five winners, but to every student who took the stage at the Mission and who participated in the school slams at Benson, Cleveland, Franklin, Grant, Jefferson, Lincoln, Madison, Metropolitan Learning Center, Roosevelt, and Wilson high schools. We’re already looking forward to next year!

]]> http://witspdx.com/2012/05/07/verselandia/feed/ 0 http://witspdx.com/2012/03/07/heidi-durrow-at-jefferson-hs-and-reynolds/ http://witspdx.com/2012/03/07/heidi-durrow-at-jefferson-hs-and-reynolds/#comments Wed, 07 Mar 2012 01:15:22 +0000 MaryR http://witspdx.com/?p=1674 On the afternoon before her lecture at the Schnitz, the 2012 Everybody Reads author Heidi Durrow returned to her alma mater for the first time since she graduated from Jefferson High School. “I have so many memories here,” she said as we walked through the auditorium.

In the sunlit band room, Durrow met with nearly 60 students who had read her book, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, and were prepared with questions. She answered each of them with an openness and warmth that quickly won over her audience, until there were raised hands throughout the room. Often she turned the questions back to the students, and when three students shared three different insights, she smiled and said, “Yes! Those are three correct answers!”

Durrow spoke of her own experiences growing up in North Portland and feeling awkward, bookish, and “not pretty” in high school. She said she wanted to write a coming of age story for anyone who didn’t fit in, saying that each of us have something to offer.

When one student asked, “What message about race relations were you trying to convey?” she replied that there was no message, except that things are more complicated than they first appear. She said her job as a novelist and artist is to ask questions. “I don’t believe in labels anymore,” she said. “Sometimes I call myself Danish and African-American. Or I tell people I’m Afro-Viking.” The audience laughed. “I want a T-shirt for that,” she said.

Another student asked how Durrow knew when her book was done. “It was finished multiple times,” she replied, and then explained how it took 12 years and 48 rejections before she won the Bellwether Prize and was published.

At Reynolds, when several of the students in a classroom of 25 claimed that they weren’t writers, Durrow pointed out that many of them probably consider themselves storytellers, even if they don’t write them down. “And the beauty of writing fiction is that we get to make it up as we go,” she said.

In both schools, Durrow spoke of the confusion and insecurities that plague most young people, no matter what their background. She cautioned against looking to labels to feel worthwhile. “You have to assign yourself the value you want in the world,” she said. “Don’t leave it up to other people.”

One of many illuminating moments in rehearsal came when a student asked The Moth producers, “Why are you here?” This young man said that he was here so that his story of handling grief could be an inspiration to other people who find themselves in the same situation. So why, he wanted to know, had The Moth producers come? Their reply was simple: “To meet all of you. Who you are is great. And it should be out there for everyone to see, because each of you has an experience, whether it’s programming a robot or winning a prize at improv comedy camp, that nobody else in this room has had. Without this workshop, we would never have met you all. We would never know what it’s like to do those things. And when you tell your stories to the audience, who knows? Maybe nobody in that room has had the experience, either. And then you’ve all come a little bit closer to knowing each other.” The exchange epitomized how The MothShop builds community, and brings young people closer to one another, and adds to the value of their own experience.

With such interactive pieces, the audience had questions for students about the process behind their creating. Each piece had been inspired by an in-class assignment. One student from Emily Harris’ class told about selecting a “boring” item from a sack and then writing about it, in this case a rock. The subsequent broadcast piece was amazingly textured, with a sensory description of a rock that the audience could virtually smell and feel as the student described it. In Nicole Georges class, students chose “weird” headlines and created a comic about them. Again, students displayed impressive creativity, building a multi-page story around a deceptively simple phrase.

It was certainly an entertaining evening for everyone involved. Many thanks to Broadway Books for hosting and to all those who came and participated!