EXPLORING OUR VALUES THROUGH POETRY
A Tapestry of Faith Program for Youth
WORKSHOP 13: PLANNING A POETRY SLAM
BY KAREN HARRIS
© Copyright 2008 Unitarian Universalist Association.
Published to the Web on 9/29/2014 6:58:28 PM PST.
This program and additional resources are available on the UUA.org web site at
www.uua.org/religiouseducation/curricula/tapestryfaith.
WORKSHOP OVERVIEW
INTRODUCTION
A goal without a plan is just a wish.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupery
In today's workshop, you will continue to plan for the Poetry Slam. If after the workshop you feel the need for additional planning time, establish a time to reconvene. If you are doing a fund-raiser during the Poetry Slam, do not forget to include the organizers in all your plans.
GOALS
This workshop will:
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Participants will:
WORKSHOP-AT-A-GLANCE
ACTIVITY | MINUTES |
Opening | 5 |
Activity 1: You and the Poetry Slam, Part II | 15 |
Activity 2: Small Group Planning | 25 |
Activity 3: What Next? | 10 |
Faith in Action: Practicing the Choral Reading | 40 |
Closing | 5 |
Alternate Activity 1: Rainy Day Plan | 50 |
SPIRITUAL PREPARATION
One activity in today's workshop involves small group planning. We get better at working in groups as we mature, and some youth will have more experience in this type of planning than others. Unitarian Universalists often joke about the pervasiveness of committees in our faith. We all know the downsides of committee work. Take a few moments to reflect upon the upsides. What happens (in the best of all possible worlds) when individuals come together to create as a group? Garnering group respect for one's own ideas and input can be quite affirming. Think of a time when you felt fellow group members' respect for your ideas and input. What kind of environment led to this affirmation? Respecting each other for ALL that we have to bring to a group effort is not always easy. How can you help create an atmosphere of respect and affirmation as the group plans their final event?
WORKSHOP PLAN
OPENING (5 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Description of Activity
Gather around the chalice. As a volunteer lights the chalice, ask the group to focus on the word "perform." Invite participants to speak freely into the space a word or two that they associate with the word "perform." When enough time has passed for everyone who wishes to speak to do so, close by saying,
May the space we create here today be wide enough to hold all our individual ideas and deep enough to allow those ideas to grow, to fruit, and to provide seeds for new beginnings.
Introduce today's workshop with these words,
In this program, we have tasted the experiences of reading, hearing, writing, and sharing poetry. Congratulations for finding the openness, creativity, and gameness of spirit to take your personal exploration of poetry this far. Today we will turn our attention outward in order to plan a public poetry event.
You may have discovered already that the more invested you are in a poem, the more you care how others respond to it. When a poem speaks from our own hearts, we certainly hope for a gentle, appreciative, energized, or otherwise positive response. Today let us shape our Poetry Slam in a way that encourages listeners to receive our poems with the open hearts that our own hearts desire and deserve.
We can simply read our poems aloud. We can include music. Our Poetry Slam can be a free-admission event or a fund-raiser or it can include a fundraiser like a bake sale. In the open mike tradition of the beatniks, anyone can stand up and recite his/her own work. In the poetry slam tradition that began in the 1990s, performing poets compete before judges. Our Poetry Slam will draw from both traditions, by being a non-competitive, planned piece of performance art. Today we will choose the poems we want to share and design a space where our audience can truly listen.
ACTIVITY 1: YOU AND THE POETRY SLAM, PART II (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Participants build upon the plans for the Poetry Slam that they started in the previous workshop.
Explain that today's process will include (a) firming up plans begun in the last workshop and (b) working in small groups to complete the planning process. By the end of today's workshop, most participants will have an assignment to complete before the event, such as practicing his/her own performance of poetry, getting audio/visual equipment and making sure it functions properly, or creating and photocopying the event program.
Remind participants of the date, time, and place for the event. Ask participants to commit to attending. If some participants cannot attend the event, encourage them to help with today's planning nonetheless and consider providing a poem for another participant to read aloud.
Begin to shape the event with a maximum of five minutes' brainstorming. To get things started, refer to the newsprint on which participants' suggestions from Workshop 12 are listed. To stimulate more discussion, ask the group these new questions:
Discuss the need to use microphones for the performance (see Including All Participants, below, for more information). Let the group know that they will have time to practice with the microphone on the day of the performance. Are cordless microphones available? This will affect your decision concerning how to seat performers.
Lead a discussion to assign roles and responsibilities. Have a volunteer document the roles and responsibilities on the easel or chalkboard, using the list of roles you prepared earlier. Ask the following questions if roles are unfilled from Workshop 12:
Draft the order in which people will read/perform.
Including All Participants
If possible, use a microphone for the performance. Explain to participants that this is important because sometimes it is difficult for those with hearing impairments to speak up and ask for amplification. By providing a microphone without being asked, you avoid putting people in an uncomfortable position. This is one way to be an ally to differently-abled people. In addition, see if your congregation has assisted listening devices for the hearing impaired, noting that these only work when a sound system is used.
ACTIVITY 2: SMALL GROUP PLANNING (25 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Make sure the room in which you meet is large enough for small groups to spread out and work independently of one another. If it is not, locate other rooms that youth can use and reserve them ahead of time.
Description of Activity
Small groups and individuals pursue assigned tasks, determine what additional tasks to do between this workshop and the Poetry Slam, and decide who will do them.
Ask the participants to work in small groups or independently, depending on their Poetry Slam role(s), to accomplish a final, detailed plan and move the plan forward. Provide newsprint and markers to groups that need them. At the end of the workshop, participants will reconvene as one group to smooth out rough spots in the overall plan and assign any outstanding jobs.
Use this template to create the small groups:
SMALL GROUP | GOALS FOR TODAY |
Poetry writers, readers, and performers | Fine-tune your own poems. Choose poems by other poets. Practice how you will read or perform the poem(s). Provide the title, author, and reader/performer(s) of your poem to the Production Crew. Provide audio/visual needs to the Production Crew. |
Publicity Planners | Write and design a flyer or other publicity for the event. For the flyer, gather information about the poems, poets, reader/performers, and fundraising activity if the Poetry Slam includes a fundraiser. Photocopy the flyer or make a plan to do so. Make a plan for distributing the flyer. |
Production Crew (includes emcee) | Write and design an Event Program to hand out at the event. For the Event Program, gather information about the poems, poets, reader/performers, and fundraising activity if the Poetry Slam includes a fundraiser. Be sure to include "special thanks" to everyone outside the program group who is helping with or contributing to the Poetry Slam in any way. Find out the audio/visual requirements of people performing poetry; strategize what equipment you need; make a plan for how to get it and who will operate it at the event. Remember to locate a microphone. You may need to ask a member of the congregation who routinely handles the sound system to help with this. Strategize how to set up and decorate the space for the event: Where will you locate seating? What will ushers do? Who will hand out programs? Who will operate the lighting? |
Fundraising Team | Make plans as needed to obtain food, tickets, or other items for sale. Decide how to provide information about the cause at the event: Will you produce a poster? Will you generate printouts from the Internet? Assign the tasks involved. Decide who will be responsible for handling the money. Connect with the Publicity Planners and Production Crew to make sure the fundraising information is included in the Publicity Flyer and the Event Program. |
Circulate among the groups as participants work and make sure each group remains focused on its goals.
Including All Participants
Monitor small groups to make sure everyone who wishes to contribute has opportunities to do so.
ACTIVITY 3: WHAT NEXT? (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
The entire group convenes in order to assign remaining tasks that are necessary to implement the public poetry event.
Gather the entire group. Ask one person from each small group to report on (a) the plans the group has made, (b) tasks yet to do and who will do them, and (c) what outside help the group needs.
Assign remaining jobs. Remind poetry readers/performers to rehearse.
Specify the time participants must arrive for the Poetry Slam. When planning when participants must arrive, allow enough time for readers/performers to practice using the microphone before the audience arrives. Note special concerns about the location or other logistics.
Lay the groundwork for post-event reflection by giving participants a preview of the reflection assignment they will complete after the Poetry Slam, during Workshop 15. The assignment's purpose is to help participants articulate their personal responses to the Poetry Slam. Distribute Handout 1, Preparing for the Poetry Slam Review. Emphasize that youth need not work on this at home; you are distributing the handout now so they are aware that you will ask them to reflect upon their experience at a later date. Inform participants that Workshop 15 will also provide time for reflection upon the entire program.
CLOSING (5 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Description of Activity
Use the Closing designed by your group or the one provided below.
Recite together Reading 712 from Singing the Living Tradition:
Do not be conformed to this world,
But be transformed by the renewing of your minds.
— Romans 12
Extinguish the chalice.
FAITH IN ACTION: PRACTICING THE CHORAL READING (40 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Participants blend pieces of poems into one poem to perform as a choral reading at the Poetry Slam.
Seek enough volunteers to each read one poem aloud. From each poem, have youth choose words, phrases, or entire lines because they like how they sound, they are central to the meaning of the poem, or for any reason at all. Remind participants that you will be using pieces of every contributed poem to construct a new, hybrid poem; each poem must be represented in your final choral reading, even if only by a single word. Youth must select words and phrases in a way that ensures everyone is heard and involved in the process. Be prepared for friendly arguments!
From among the participants, choose a "scribe" who has neat handwriting. Ask the scribe to write chosen words, phrases, and lines on newsprint.
Assemble a script from the chosen material. Then make performance decisions, such as:
Your choral reading may not make sense or tell a story. However, do not be surprised if it does end up sounding cohesive and powerful.
Practice! You can use a script when you read, but run through the reading a few times to be sure everyone is comfortable with her/his part; when each voice comes in and whatever else you will each be doing.
Allow at least thirty minutes to prepare for rehearsal. As the youths work, observe and offer support. Before dispersing, review the jobs that still need doing. If you received permission to distribute copies of the original poems, how will you distribute copies? Will you produce an insert for the program? Who will make copies? Is there information that needs to be reported to the Production Crew or Publicity Planners? Are there audio-visual needs that require attention or props to be gathered? If participants appear uneasy, is another rehearsal possible?
Including All Participants
To ensure inclusiveness and fair treatment, monitor the process by which the group decides who will do what in the choral reading. If your group is large, consider dividing it into teams. Each team would use an assigned portion of the chosen words to write a stanza.
LEADER REFLECTION AND PLANNING
Review all the plans for the Poetry Slam and, if applicable, the choral reading and fund-raiser. Decide who will contact others who play a key role in organizing and follow through by contacting them in the upcoming week. Especially ensure that someone informs congregational leaders and invites them to the performance. Make sure you have extra copies of all materials, including original poems participants will read.
TAKING IT HOME
A goal without a plan is just a wish.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupery
DURING TODAY'S WORKSHOP...
We continued planning for the Poetry Slam.
What I need to do before our next meeting is ____________________________.
What I need to bring to our next meeting is _____________________________.
REFLECTION QUESTION:
Is your role in the Poetry Slam one that both enables you to use the talents you have and challenges you to grow in a new way?
EXPLORE THE TOPICS FURTHER WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS...
A poet deep within my soul,
To write, the chance I seize.
If going to the market
Be sure to pick up cheese.
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 1: RAINY DAY PLAN (50 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
If your group is not planning to hold a Poetry Slam, use this workshop in one or both of the following ways;
My Favorite Poem: Ask each participant to bring a favorite poem from their childhood to read to the group. After each reading, discuss the possible differences in interpretation that readers made as children versus those made as youth.
Reading on the Green: Taking your poetry outside combines two great joys: the appreciation of poetry and the out-of-doors. Special snacks will turn the event into a picnic. You might let youth read to themselves from poetry anthologies. You could invite youth to bring poetry on a certain theme: the current season, nature, UU poets, or the like. You could also combine My Favorite Poem with Reading on the Green. Just have fun.
Including All Participants
If you choose to go outside, make sure your space is accessible to both regular participants and anyone who might visit.
EXPLORING OUR VALUES THROUGH POETRY: WORKSHOP 13:
HANDOUT 1: PREPARING FOR THE POETRY SLAM REVIEW
During the final workshop of this program, your leaders will ask you to reflect on your Poetry Slam experience. This handout will get your thinking started about what you might write at that time; you do not need to do the assignment until then.
Choose one of the following ways to reflect upon the Poetry Slam:
You may choose to provide reflection by any of the three options. To reiterate, you do not need to work on this at home; your leaders will provide time during the final workshop to complete the assignment.
FIND OUT MORE
Youth Speaks Online (at youthspeaks.org/) is the nation's leading non-profit presenter of spoken word performance, education, and youth development programs.
Gary Mex Glazner, ed. Poetry Slam: The Competitive Art of Performance Poetry. San Francisco: Manic D Press, 2000.
POETRY ANTHOLOGIES: There are literally hundreds of poetry anthologies. Availability will be a factor in which ones you use. Before bringing any resources to the group, make sure the content is appropriate for youth. Look for violent images, sexual or other inappropriate language, mature situations, and stereotyping. Aim for ethnic, racial, gender, and cultural diversity. Consider asking a local youth librarian for suggestions. Here are a few anthologies to consider:
Cosman, Carol, Joan Keefe, and Kathleen Weaver, eds. The Penguin Book of Women Poets. New York: Penguin Books, 1978.
Collins, Billy, ed. Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry. New York: Random House, 2003.
Reed, Ishmael, ed. From Totems to Hip Hop: A Multicultural Anthology of Poetry Across the Americas 1900-2002. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2002.
Roman, Camille, Thomas Travisano, and Steven Gould Axelrod, eds. New Anthology of American Poetry. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005.