VCU news

By Megan Schmidt

Heads bowed, fingers intertwined and clasped before them, four members of Slam Nahuatl at VCU began their performance of “Cell Phone Sermon” at the 2014 College Union Poetry Slam Invitational (CUPSI), held at the University of Colorado Boulder in mid-March.

“Let us bow our heads in prayer.
Lord, please forgive us for the sins we commit, when left to our own cellular devices.
Please bless all of the dead cell phones, Wailing Wall cracked screens, holy water damaged, and walk with your children who still use flip phones with no Internet access.
We pray, in the name of the father, Verizon and the Holy Spirit.
Hashtag, amen.”

It was the second year in a row that the Virginia Commonwealth University team had found themselves in the final stage of competition at CUPSI. In 2013, Slam Nahuatl took home third place. This year, the VCU contingent finished second.

Team captain and president of the student organization, Saidu Tejan-Thomas Jr., credits determination for their consistent success.

“We progressed," Tejan-Thomas wrote in an email. "We were the only team that was in the final stage the previous year that returned again. We are consistent, but most of all we are hungry for growth and maturity in our art.”

Slam poetry is a performance. It is a means for writers to showcase their poems on stage in front of crowds of people, while being judged based on their writing and presentation.

The competition, hosted by the Association of College Unions International, brought together teams of poets representing 52 colleges and universities from across the nation.

“The other teams all brought different energy to the space we shared,” Tejan-Thomas wrote. “A lot of the California teams performed poems about the low quality of public education in their cities; Northwestern teams did poems about gender and intersectionality; and Northeastern teams, such as Brooklyn, did poems on the topic of race in America. Because VCU is such a diverse school, our team had a variety of poems and we were able to bring a little bit of everything to the table—and it took us far.”

In addition to its second-place showing, Slam Nahuatl, founded in 2011 and named after an Aztec word meaning, “a good, clear sound,” also left Colorado with the “Spirit of the Slam” award, given to the school with the best positive and supportive attitude throughout the competition. Such an award is not easily won, according to Tejan-Thomas.

“Our coaches, Robalû Gibsun and Chris Johnson, pushed us to our limits, stayed up with us until six in the morning on multiple days, editing and revising our poems. Some of us wavered in school, because we were so dedicated, but the experience taught us how to be responsible and manage our time wisely.”

The entire experience brings not only individual school teams together, but all of the participants of the competition who fly or drive home after the event and immediately friend each other on Facebook to lament their return to normal life after a week of doing what they love.

“And with that, let us conclude our sermon.
We’ll be passing around a basket for Instagram donations.
If you can give just one like, it makes a difference.
Thank you all, and may you never lose signal.
Hashtag, amen.”

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