When Tariq Luthun went home this August after summer classes, he wrote an eight-page proposal to create a new student poetry organization.
“I wanted to build a group where everyone could participate freely,” he said.
UNC Wordsmiths was his solution.
The organization hosts monthly poetry events on campus. At the end of each month, there is an open mic poetry slam that allows students to showcase their spoken word poetry.
“Spoken word is not really seen as poetry by academics,” Luthun said. “I wanted to bridge the gap between spoken word and written word.”
The events are divided into three portions: Open Mic, Featured Poet’s Performance and Poetry Slam.
The Open Mic segment will be an hour long with eight students lined up to perform.
Before the Slam begins, the featured poet will perform three or four poems for roughly 15 minutes.
Tonight’s guest poet is Will McInerney, a co-director for Sacrificial Poets.
One of the reasons for interspersing the performance with a featured act, Luthun said, was that “a lot of people are interested in poetry but still need to hone their skills. We wanted a buffer that could train and guide the younger fans.”
The third portion of the event, the Poetry Slam, is, Luthun said, “like the play offs.”
Not only are the slammers at tonight’s event competing for best poet of the evening, but the top five slammers from the whole year will be selected in January to move on to a national poetry competition in California.
So far this year, the Wordsmiths’ events have seen fairly large audiences. The first two events each had at least fifty audience members in attendance, Luthun said.
“I want people to be able to share their poetry and grow because of it,” he said.
See the slam tonight at 6 p.m. in Bull’s Head Bookshop in Student Stores. Admission is free.
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