Poetry Slam at DSU, Oct. 24 and 31

The College of Humanities, Education, and Social Sciences (CHESS) will culminate October’s Arts and Humanity Month with the final sessions of its Poetry Slam series from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday (Common Hour), Oct. 24 and Oct. 31 (the last two Thursday of the month) in the Atrium Lobby of the Education and Humanities Building.

The Poetry Slam is an open stage event – such as one held on Oct. 17 – in which students, faculty and staff can sign up to perform poetry and spoken word works. 

Dr. Adenike Davidson, acting Dean of the CHESS, said that Poetry Slam events are especially appropriate for HBCUs like DSU.

“African Americans come from a long line of poets, found in the spirituals sung for both survival and the vessel for messages; work songs both in the field and on the chain gang of the penal system; and protest songs on picket lines, sit-ins, and even crossing of the Edmond Pettus Bridge,” Dr. Davidson said. “Our published poet-mother Phyllis Wheatley taught us how to doublespeak in the face of the oppressor; Langston Hughes used our blues music in verse to express the spirit of the folk; Gwendolyn Brooks presented the raw as lyric; and Amiri Baraka revolutionized rhyme.”

Writer and civil rights activist Audre Lorde states, in her seminal essay, “…poetry is not a luxury.  It is a vital necessity of our existence.  It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action.  …Poetry Is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives.” 

For more questions or more information about the Poetry Slam events, contact Dr. Sandra Sokowski at ssokowski [at] desu.edu.