By Kelly Cullen ’13 | Social Media Editor

On Monday Nov. 26, Annalise Bissa ’13 won the first Poetry Slam of the school year.  The slam was held at the Ewald Library, with an audience of about 40 people, said Creative Writing teacher Harry Campion.  Campion was very impressed with the attendance, but hoped for a few more poets to perform.

Starting off the Poetry Slam, there is an Open Mic for anyone to come up to the front and share their poetry or someone else’s, Campion said.

After the Open Mic, there were two different rounds where six people competed against each other reading their poems, Campion said.  Students in the crowd were picked to judge each person ranking them a 1 to 10.  After the rounds were completed, Campion calculated the score and announced the places starting from sixth to first.

“My favorite part in general is the final round,” said Campion.  “This part is exciting as we see who made it to the final round and how the crowd thought everyone did.”

Marie Monarch ’13 who attended the Poetry Slam was very impressed by those who had the nerve to read their poem in front of a roomful of people.

“It takes a lot for someone to go up to the front of the room and share a piece they’ve been working on for quite some time,” said Monarch.  “It was really cool to hear people’s poems and watch them perform it so passionately.”

Every Monday at Caribou, Campion holds a poetry workshop.  Bissa attends the workshop every Monday and credits her success to the help she receives when attending.  The work that is done at the workshop is editing, writing, practicing, and discussing their poems to one another.

For Bissa, the hardest part is preparing to perform her poem and editing it, said Bissa.  “My poem did not take long at all to write; that’s the easy part.”

Her winning poem that received the highest scores amongst the crowd was something she wrote to make people laugh, Bissa said.

“My poem was about the first person I thought I was in love with, at age four, and plays off the ridiculousness of that,” said Bissa.  “One of the best parts of slam is making people laugh; I’m absolutely addicted to that feeling!”