Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Zaccheus Jackson
My expectations for the slam poet presentation was much lower than what we had received. I wasn't quite expecting a man who would tell us about his life and how poetry changed it. But he did, Zaccheus Jackson came to our school today and told us about slam poetry. Now your probably asking ; what is slam poetry? Slam poetry is were you as a person gets to show your stuff about poetry and if you go far with it you can also travel the world to different schools or places to present and tell the world about it like Zaccheus Jackson.
Zaccheus was telling us how slam poetry changed his life. He said that he was just strolling along and saw a sign that read SLAM POETRY, GIVE IT YOUR BEST SHOT. So Zaccheus decided to give it a shot, he walked into the coffee shop and presented his poem. Zaccheus told us that he ran out crying because he was so nervous even before he could see his score. I thought that Zaccheus had gone through a lot and it was very brave of him to do this. Zaccheus told us many stories on how he would come up with his poems. They were quite funny and very inspirational.
Zaccheus Jackson was a joy to watch and Slam Poet should be spread across North America or maybe even the world. Zaccheus gave us examples of his own work, a variety of ways he thought of all of it and silly stories. He was quite the man and might inspire many children across the world because how he came out of his "funk" was a huge accomplishment.
Thank you, Zaccheus Jackson.
You were a joy to watch and an inspiration to all of us!
Zaccheus Jackson in ACTION
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I am glad you enjoyed his performance Paige. I find it interesting reading responses because several students seemed more enthralled and inspired with Zacheus' life story almost more than his poetry. I think you have an idea of what you can do as a slam poet but I am not sure that you fully understand what slam poetry or spoken word is. How is it different from other forms of poetry? You may wish to include some links with examples or other sites that explain what it is to help you and your readers understand it better. I enjoyed the selection you posted from one of Zach's performances earlier this year - that piece is particularly powerful and there is a lot of depth and literary as well as performance techniques used in his delivery. Make sure you pre-screen your choices to include though as this particular one should have a warning to youth/parents regarding language use - some swearing. It is appropriate for his intended audience that day but you may have noticed when he performed that piece in our theatre, he modified or adapted some of the language to be more suitable for high school audiences gr 8-12. His Fraser Heights rendition was just as powerful for our audiences, and it begs the question, do you think swearing is necessary or adds to his performance or does it detract or distract us from his message? Artists of all kinds struggle with these dilemmas for fear of alienating an audience as well as gaining other audiences . What do you think? This might be a great question or conversation to have with Zacheus!
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