by Chloë Moore ’24
The Words recently sat down with Adrien Wright ’25 of MacSlams, our campus slam poetry group, to catch up on the last semester and learn what’s in store for the rest of spring. Their answers are provided below!
Can you catch us up on the highlights of last semester? What highs are you still riding? Any personal favorite memories with the group?
In our fall semester, our slams featured 3 Twin Cities based poets–it’s always exciting to engage with the vibrant poetry community right at our doorstep! We feature poets from all over, but I was surprised when I moved to the cities at the extent of the poetry scene here. We were also able to branch out last semester and host a story slam in addition to our regular monthly poetry slams, which was so cool! Although the slams are our big events, my favorite memories are bonding with the writing circle group every week.
What are you most looking forward to for the spring semester?
In the spring semester, we send our competitive team to tournaments–look out for us at the Midwest Poetry Mashup in April!
What events do you have planned?
We have weekly writing workshops 4:45-6:15 pm Tuesdays in room 207 in the CC. We also have monthly poetry slams–our February slam happened on Saturday, the 24th at 7pm. April 19-20 is the Midwest Poetry Mashup in Minneapolis, where our touring team will compete.
How can people get involved in MacSlams? What should they bring with them?
Everyone is welcome at writing circles and slams alike. No experience required! If you want a chill, regularly scheduled environment where we write from new poetry prompts every week, just bring yourself and something to write with to CC 207 Tuesdays at 4:45 pm. If you’re interested in seeing a slam performance, reading at an open mic, or competing in one of our slams yourself, keep an eye out for our monthly slams! Sign-up for performers is day-of. You can send any questions via email to [email protected].
Do you have any poetic themes/obsessions/aesthetics fleshed out as a group? What are you writing around/towards/about? Who are you reading?
One of my favorite parts of MacSlams is actually the huge diversity of perspectives, writing styles, subject matter, etc. that people share. Slam as a form tends to celebrate explorations of political issues and personal experiences. It’s so cool to learn about people’s lives. Personally, I just can’t stop talking about gender, the process of digestion, and fun facts from marine biology. My favorite poet has to be Anne Carson. The most recent collection I read was The Only Worlds We Know by Michael Lee, which also came out of the Minneapolis slam scene!
Anything else you want to tell us?
Follow us on ig @mac_slams and email us with anything your heart desires at [email protected]!
Thank you to Adrien for taking the time to talk about slam poetry with us!