Students from Grades 5-9 participated in ISL’s annual Poetry Slam, in which they performed poetry before judges and peers in order to select the top “performers” from each class. But the Poetry Slam is much more than a competition. It is a week when students are encouraged to not only write poems, but also to share their feelings, impressions and ideas through poetry.
There are magical moments during the Poetry Slam when the student-poet creates images and evokes feelings in the audience. Somehow this comes about through a certain combination of words and phrases and just as importantly, through the poet’s sincere expression of those words. During this week, windows into the hearts and souls of the students are opened, if only briefly. Ultimately, the goals of the Poetry Slam are to demystify poetry, to distance it from a studied analysis of poetry and to help students recognize and release the poet inside themselves.
International School 
