By Anna Šverclová ’23
Hello English Department, and goodbye.
Wow, it’s been a weird few years. I was a first year for like five minutes and suddenly, I’m a senior. Leaving doesn’t feel real yet, but everyone’s asking for my farewell thoughts. So, here goes nothing.
Today, I’m thinking back to 2019. When I came to Mac, I had no intention of being an English major. Maybe a vague one, somewhere in the back of my head. I had always loved English classes back home, but I came in thinking I would be a German major, or an International Studies major. Heck, I took physics my first semester! During the first week of classes, I wasn’t even enrolled in a creative writing class, but I had accidentally registered for 4 WA/WC courses, and I had to drop one. I asked my friend Alekos if they’d heard of any good classes on Tuesdays/Thursdays from 1:20-2:50, and I sat in on Michael Prior’s Intro class the next day. The first unit was poetry. I was somewhat familiar with poetry– I liked to listen to slam poetry videos on Youtube, and my best friend from home and I would write poetry together occasionally, but I had never actually finished reading a book of poetry before. On the first day, I remember leaving class with a huge packet of poems from poets like Tracy K. Smith and William Carlos Williams, and for the first time maybe in my whole life, I really, really connected with a poem– “I Don’t Miss It” by Tracy K. Smith. Reading that poem, I felt like finally someone translated that indescribable and complex feeling I thought I had only ever felt before, of living halfway between worlds, traveling between the memory and the present. It was life-changing. I memorized that poem. I re-wrote it again and again in my journal. I was hooked.
As I began to write my own poetry, I always hoped I could strike someone in that same way, reach some alienating human feeling and make it known and knowable. When Professor Michael Prior and I began working on my poetry honors project this year, he told me, “Everything you’ve ever written is informed by everything that has ever been written, and will inform everything that’s ever been written.” The act of writing is the entry into the hive-mind of human consciousness. I came to Mac from an incredibly conservative high school, and for most of my life, I thought I was the only one that thought the way I did. When I first realized I was a lesbian, I didn’t know there were actually other people like me, and I was terrified that I would never meet another queer person. Before I was able to find a queer community, I found my community through reading and writing. Every time I find a poem that speaks to me, it feels like I’ve unlocked a new family member or ancestor in my emotional lineage.
Writing is a great way to build a community. This week, I’ve been thinking a lot about my writing community here at Mac. Running writing workshops though MacSlams these past 4 years has been such a magical experience. I love reading poetry, but there’s something about listening to someone read something they just wrote that is so vulnerable and intimate. I love how being a part of this organization allows me to get so emotionally involved with my peers. I know the people I’ve met through MacSlams will be my friends for life. I love MacSlams because it’s competitive, but it’s also incredibly supportive. When I see my fellow poets succeed, I feel like a proud mom. I am so grateful to poetry for being a space where I can feel excited about the growth of others instead of wanting to rise above them. I feel like we really push each other to grow.
I am so grateful for the time I have had in leading MacSlams. I have learned so much about writing, but I’ve also learned how to be a leader, how to organize and inspire, and learn from both my older and younger peers. My favorite thing about the slam community at Mac is how the structure of the org allows you to always be both mentor and mentee. No matter how old you are, there are always older alumni involved, and everyone is always at different levels of writing experience. I am so glad to have been able to learn and teach all at once. Watching my MacSlams folks grow over the last few years has been such a wonderful process. Last Saturday, MacSlams had our final poetry slam of the school year– my last Mac Slam as a student– and the chapel was filled with poets, all of which I had seen perform before at some point or another, and they were all so amazing. They all performed with such genuine emotion, I almost cried several times throughout the night. I was so proud of many of the younger students, because I could see in real time the work and time they’d put into shaping their poetry.
Watching my peers and mentees in the slam community perform also made me so incredibly proud of the work that myself and other alumni have done to cultivate the scene here at Mac. I couldn’t help but think back to all the miserable Zoom slams Alice and I ran over the COVID year, and that wonderful first semester back on campus last fall, when I finally got to see everyone’s faces again. It’s been such an amazing experience, being an org leader. I’ve gotten to learn from so many brilliant poets, not just about poetic craft, but about organizing, and how to make a space that people want to come to. I love poetry, but I love the community most of all.
XOXO,
Anna