About Get Lit Class Slam Competition
300 Poets. 50 Schools. 1 Champion. The Get Lit Class Slam Competition is the largest youth classic poetry festival in the world, where high school students from all over Southern California face off to “slam” iconic poems & their original responses. Every April (National Poetry Month) students complete Get Lit’s in-school program with this festival, judged by artistic thought leaders, for school spirit & cash scholarships. This year’s judges include Duckwrth, Neil Hilborn, Demi Adejuyigbe, Danielle Brazell, Gina Belfafonte, & Rhiannon McGavin!
“Ignite”
A spoken word poem by Mingjie Zhai
To recreate what happened on that day,
would only be to imitate
the experience that was uniquely designed for that moment
for the power of the youth
within the spoken word community
created a stage where heartbreaks
could break in beats, in intonations, in words
spoken
in a multitude of colors
A struggle painted in poetry is
why the caged bird sings
Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes, and the Hues of all the
dead poets
resurrected in the vibration
chords, mixed with memories
each tear drop a story
A boy growing up
shots heard
the fear
the pain of the familiar
addiction and innocence
blended
Adoption
Brown
“the color of corn syrup”
The Refugee
refuses to be identified by a social-political label
The rage on the stage
transformed into Pride
into the “I”
“My Skin Color”
A child’s eyes, she sees clearly, through
the cleansing tears
of skid row
the juxtapositions
rich and poor
on her pink T-shirt,
bits of her hair fall
like Spanish moss
from a Louisiana tree
Irony
Beautiful minds
Expressive
“Velveteen Rabbit”
Urban Nomads
They Carry
the future in their hearts
baring their souls
“Don’t be nice, be nasty,”
the crowd shouted
at the poet
in the spotlight
“It’s going down”
Natalie is Poet
says with her sharp red nails
and thick red lips
beat box beating
in the rhythm of a community
of our hope
“When I say hip, you say hop,”
“hip”
“Hop!”
“hip!”
“Hop!”
Breathing life into you
“Don’t fall in love with a poet”
Chills
“finding beauty in disasters”
she grounds the room
sending chills through and through
My Response
Judge
the points don’t matter, really
like Who’s Line Is It Anyway?
It’s everybody’s line
because everything is on the line
Front lines
the judgement is the illusion
to quantify, to box, to categorize
is a fine line
that one draws in this competition
though one must win
all is a winner
because the world of sin
is a song sung by all sinners
and all hearts are heavy
all experiences a love story
but here she is today
Angelie
judging
the pieces
of broken hearts that
are painted in multi-textured breathes
with multi-colored memories
from multi-cultured ethno-social-political identities
unicorns
“Don’t be nice, be nasty,”
Angelie heard them say.
She smiles.
She thinks of kweisi gharreau of innocent rage
whose brother was gunned down
black on black violence
he bled his rage onto white sheets
in black and blue ink
red, black, and white
were the colors of his pain
colorful pain that weeps
she thinks of Okeema,
the student who raised her brother
while single mothers still struggle
while their men are trapped between
the cells
of mental prisons
from corrupted systems
manifesting physical and emotional absence
where do you find the release?
Here in the space of poetry
like waves that roar
pouring out in the space
for young men and women
who chose the path
of creative expression
to express the greatest test
self-destruction or creative expression
choose
they have chosen the third and final act
on the Get Lit Stage
Igniting
their rage
their anger
their frustration
their confusion
their pain
lit up
EXPRESS
bringing from the depth of their truth
out
from the pits of their soul
through vocal cords
and anxious lips
manifesting