There I was, standing in front of the podium, thinking Why the heck did I sign up for this? I was at SAR High School in New York, standing before a crowd of 50-odd teenagers, with two sheets of paper as my only defense. And I was supposed to perform a poem to them. A poem that I had written myself.

Some background is needed here. I was just shy of 15, a freshman in my second semester of high school. It had taken me half a year to decide to join my school’s slam poetry team. I had wanted to from the beginning, because in my school if you were a writer you joined the slam team. And I liked to consider myself a writer, or at least I hoped to be one one day. So slam seemed like a natural choice for me, right? Not so simple. You see, my school’s slam team had a “bad” reputation. The year before, the team had got in trouble with the school, and had nearly been disbanded. I wasn’t yet sure if I wanted to associate myself with that kind of group. It took me half a year to decide that I didn’t care.

At my first slam team meeting, a friend of mine performed a 5-minute poem, which was incredible. I hadn’t know that he could write that way, or that he could speak from his heart that way. That poem, an ideal to strive towards, showed me what slam could be. It showed me how I could use poetry as a vehicle for expressing my deepest thoughts and feelings, and then communicating them to others. I had never done anything like that before. Unwittingly, I had stumbled upon a treasure.
I wrote my first poem that very same day, pouring my emotions into free verse. It was terrible. But I was hooked, addicted to words and this new way of expressing them. So when the team captain asked me hey we are going to a competition next week do you want to perform, I accepted.

I spent time crafting my poem for the competition. It talked about a girl (not myself, I emphatically emphasized) who is destroyed by pretending to be something that she is not. I think that the poem was about me in more ways than I admitted. By joining the slam team, I had thrown off all of the facades that held me back and revealed my true self.

The big day finally came. We drove three hours to New York City on a school bus, until we reached SAR High School. It was much bigger than our own school. We were directed to a small room, where we would perform our poems in the first round. I sat with my teammates on folding chairs and looked at the program, waiting for my turn with anticipation and nervousness. I could hardly listen to any of the other performers, because I was so scared. I worried that I would forget my lines, that my voice would sound weird, that I would burst out in nervous laughter, or that nobody would like my poem.

They called my name. I stood up and walked to the podium at the front of the small room. I carefully laid out my papers, which I insisted on carrying even though I had memorized my poem. I looked over at my teammates, watching and supporting me. Sharing feelings through poetry had made them my close friends, and they were not at all the “bad” kids I had thought they were. Then I looked at the wall, because I knew that I would start laughing if I looked at people while performing. I took a deep breath, and began my poem.

As I read, I heard people snapping at my lines, giving me support and encouragement. I had the sense that I was doing something worthwhile, that there was a value to sharing myself like this. And in a way, it felt natural, even as it was a new experience. It felt almost like flying. I completed my poem, stepped away from the podium, and walked back to my seat.  

I didn’t make it to the second round. But the experience taught me so much that I felt like a winner. Since then, I have written and performed many poems, some good and some bad. But no matter how many slams I go to, I will never recreate that feeling of my first performance, that feeling of endless possibility, that feeling of rightness.