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Slam Poetry with Waimea Middle School students

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Slam Poet Kealoha

Slam Poet Kealoha (that’s how he’s best known) graduated with honors in Nuclear Science from MIT, came home to Hawai’i but wasn’t inspired to pursue a career in his field of study. Between surfing and hanging out, he stumbled across Slam Poetry and he was hooked.

Now, Kealoha devotes a lot of time as a ‘Hawai’i Artist In The Schools’ mentor helping youth discover a love of words, poetry and performance and finding their “voices.” This includes 165 Waimea Middle School 6th and 8th graders over the past eight weeks.

Waimea families and the entire community are now invited to come enjoy the fruit of Kealoha’s language arts lessons during an evening of Slam Poetry from 5-7 p.m., Wed., April 14, 2010 in the Waimea School cafeteria. About 25 WMS students will join Kealoha on stage to present their original slam poetry creations. Also taking the stage will be several of WMS’ winners of the 11th Annual Martin Luther King, Jr., Peace Poetry Contest. WMS students taking honors in the peace poem competition included Seychelle Francis, Sean Quinlan, Alex Siordia and Birolena Vaoga.

The Slam Poetry evening program is free and open to everyone but an RSVP is requested for the make-your-own-sandwich-and-soup-bar that’s included. Community friends wanting to attend the Slam Poetry evening are asked to call Patti Cook (937-2833) or email cookshi@aol.com.

Funded by a Hawaii State Foundation on Culture & the Arts’ “Artist in the Schools” grant, Kealoha’s visits were arranged by WMS Language Arts teacher Leesa Robertson who collaborated with other Language Arts teachers in the school.

For those not familiar with Slam Poetry, it’s an art form in which a poet creates and then reads or recites original work, or, more rarely, that of others. Props, costumes and music are generally forbidden in slams. Slam Poetry first emerged in the mid 1980s and has grown in popularity – especially with teens — because it encourages self expression that’s fun and – from an educational perspective – because it stimulates a love of the spoken and written word and in performance.

Slam Poet Kealoha (aka Steven Wong) was born and raised in the islands and of multi-ethnic heritage. He uses Slam Poetry to express a powerful and passionate perspective of life in these islands and the world. He is the founder of HawaiiSlam and in the seven years that he has represented Hawai`i at the National Poetry Slam, he has performed on the finals stage 4 times, finishing 8th individually out of 350 of the world’s best poets in 2007.

In 2009, Kealoha was featured on HBO’s Brave New Voices series presented by Russel Simmons and has made dozens of television appearances, including the State of Hawaii’s “Can’t Fool the Youth” anti-smoking campaign that he wrote, performed, and co-directed.

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