2023 Annual 11th Grade SLAM Competition

Written By: Sophia Caruso and Malia Douglas, Staff Writers

SLAM: Annual SLAM poetry returns to Poly.

**SEE SLAM COMPETITION VIDEOS FOR EACH CLASS PERIOD BELOW!!!!!

This year Poly High School had its 12th annual SLAM competition. For those unfamiliar with SLAM it is a poem contest, consisting of the junior class. The juniors come up with a poem that is personal to them, and recite the memorized poems in their junior English classes; the teachers select the juniors from their class to move on to the final SLAM competition, which is held in the Little theater here at Poly. Judges are selected and listen to each poem and thoroughly grade it based on memorization and the charisma and performance in which it is delivered. 

Although that isn’t the only thing that determines the winner, participants have a time limit of anywhere between one minute and thirty seconds to three minutes long. In that time period, contestants need to have a poem that impresses the judges all while performing in front of different classes. This year, fifty-six participants of the SLAM tournament moved on to perform their poems for the school. Poems consisted of everything, ranging from love to the crisis of today, but all had a message to convey. 

Normally, in the competition, only ten students move on to the SLAM off, but this year sixteen students moved on; the competition was intense. The winner of the soloist category for this year is Sincerely Heard, with her poem “Ode to my brother,” where she speaks about racial inequality in today’s society. The inspiration came from a story of her brother that suffered police brutality. Sincerely was able to address a huge problem within approximately two minutes and captivated the crowd, which is why she was rightfully awarded the first-place title. Upon interviewing Sincerely she expressed her love for poetry. “It’s always been a big dream of mine to get my poetry out since I’ve been writing and doing slam since I was twelve years old.” Her goal is to live up to her name, “to be honest, and ‘Sincerely Heard’.”

First Place Soloist – Sincerely Heard, performing her SLAM poem.

Since the soloist category for SLAM is significantly larger than the other sections, the top 15 soloists in the semi-finals competed in a SLAM off. This highly competitive competition resulted in three winners – a first, second, and third-place winner. This year our second-place winner is Johnny Monforte, and our third-place winner is Ariel Ruezga.

 This year’s second-place recipient was none other than Johnny Monforte, with his poem “The Addictive Device.” In his poem, he uses figurative language to describe the chokehold his phone has on him and how it prohibits him from strengthening his relationships. Johnny reports, “it was kind of hard to decide on a topic with so many options.” After realizing what he wanted to write about the words flowed out of him with somewhat of a breeze. During his performance, Johnny used his charismatic charm to keep the audience engaged and score the second-place title. 

Johnny Monforte, performing his SLAM poem

With her poem “My House Never Sleeps” Ariel was awarded third place. She admits that performing her poem made her extremely nervous but that “friendly faces in the audience” allowed her to recite it, and ultimately win third place. Ariel confesses that she “did not believe [she] would make it this far”, and even second guesses herself but is ultimately glad that she had the confidence to perform and to put together such a well-written, passion-driven, emotionally moving poem. Ariel is a perfect example of how sometimes a leap of faith can go a long way.

2nd place soloist – Ariel Ruezga

The SLAM competition does not just consist of soloists, there are groups and duos which also took part in the competition, but those are placed in their own categories and scored separately. The winners of the duo competition this year (shown to the right) are Keira Takenaga and Keaton Stokley, with a poem titled “Driving in California Sucks.” This couple’s poem had humor that delighted the audience, brought joy into the air, and was relatable to most of the audience – if not all. 

Keaton Stokley and Keira Takenaga

For groups this year the poem “Life’s Incredible Pizza ” won, Avery Bacon, Grace Robinson, and Lauren Uhlick performed it together. Their poem told their stories of growing through the making of pizza. The group was missing one of their group members and had to make last-minute adjustments, but still managed to place first in their category. This group did not let anything hold them back from winning, despite major setbacks. 

Avery Bacon, Grace Robinson, Lauren Uhlick

The SLAM competition can seem daunting at first but it can really open people’s eyes to  issues that need to be addressed, and maybe the new generation can work to fix them. This tradition will carry on into further generations and hopefully help improve our world one poem at a time.

Here is the list of the people that competed in the 2023 SLAM competition in the theater. Great job everybody.