SLAM poetry is actually really fun. I’m glad that I got to do this project. From the writing, to the presentation. It feels so open and free. Like a bird that just learned how to fly, exploring the world around itself. 

Poetry is about self expression. I found it weird that we were making our poems on an impact caused by the industrial revolution. Why should I care about people moving to cities, or bad working conditions. I ended up changing my mind about that because through the writing process of the slam poem, because I found things to connect to. I needed emotion to drive my poem, so I had to focus on the emotional inducing elements of the impacts on workers, like child labour, or the terrible working conditions. Everyone managed to find something emotionally inducing about their topics because they needed to. At face value, there is little emotion to each topic, but when you look in the right places they all have a lot of emotional value to them. 

One of the success criteria that we were being judged on was letting go of our fears. I don’t personally have that fear, at least not in front of a small class that I know personally, but I do have difficulty speaking clearly and loudly. I practiced often once I finished my slam poem, and got it down pretty clearly, but once I got to the big stage I still managed to slur a lot of words. I think I was pacing myself wrong, but I want to have clearer speech on the big stage. 

My poem

Those were the days,
By Tom Hofofofofofofo

Life was good,

Farm life treated us all with kindness,

Those were the days,

Before the machines, those wretched machines.

Those were the days,

Life was nice,

My kids helped around the house,

Still virgins from the scum that factories brought to us,

No more,

Those wretched people,

My children slave away for the overlords of society, no choice, no freedom

Why do they treat them so terribly?

My wife, oh my poor wife,

What did she do?

All she did was ask for a break, for the back breaking job left her with no way to shake off the trauma, the fear!

What did she do wrong?

Please, you have your money, you have your power.

Why do you yearn for more? (Sad questioning)

You hunger for POWER, more POWER (menacing)

A full belly and yet you still starve,

You can’t stop your addiction, you’ll never stop` until you die.

You remain stuck in the rat race, just like the rest of us,

No freedom for anyone in this world,

So why do we stay,

Working our asses off for no pay,

Power, status, love, lust.

How can we get ahead when we are all held by the same chain,

We are so busy beating each other, we end up beating ourselves.

Just wish I was back on the farm,

Oh, those were the days.

Trickery and troubles throughout this project. 

During the writing process I feel liked I lucked out. I wrote some terrible drafts, and on the last day wrote one good one. For both the factual paragraph and the slam poem got nothing done for the first two days and then spent half an hour writing an amazing draft. HOW? I have no clue how I clutched up so hard in those weeks before the end of the project. Not only that, I am very proud of my slam poem too. 

It might be because of my good research or maybe I focused really well on those few classes but that brought me from barely making it through to feeling confident and capable. Honestly no matter how I did all that, I know that it won’t be there every time I fail, so I’ll need to do some actual work someday. 

Tbh I’m happy that I learned how to write slam poetry because it’s really fun. I think I worked hard to make sure that I could clutch up, even if I still got a little lucky. My revising stage went really well, and I had time to practice as well.

Overall project was a 8.5/10, would’ve been better with different topic, but slam poems are fun as heck!