MSU’s Black History Month Poetry Slam gathered full seating and a steady drift of standing crowds of students at the Tivoli’s Roger Braun Multicultural Event Lounge on February 11th in the early afternoon. The slam was the second of six Black History Month events organized throughout February by three MSU Departments: MSU’s Center for Multicultural Engagement and Inclusion (CMEI), Department of Africana Studies, and Brother to Brother—a CMEI program that empowers male-identified students of color through mentorship and other avenues of support.  

Students and faculty were greeted with an open mic stage adorned with the symbolic colors of the Pan-African movement: Black, green, red, and yellow. Tables for the audience featured centerpieces that held many of the 54 African countries’ flags atop a small runner resembling Kente cloth. The event served wings, rice, Jambalaya skewers and fruit, buffet-style as current Adams County Poet Laureate Aerik Francis (@phaentompoet on Instagram) greets and warms up the crowd with the poem “Limits of Language,” featured in their chapbook BODYPOLITIC. Francis observes that slam poetry is an effective form of talk therapy as they encourage ways in which the crowd can respectfully engage with performers on stage. Audience members practiced snapping in agreement and what Francis referred to as an “ancestral grunt” when a phrase resonated deeply with the audience. 

Matthieu Caldwell (@celestial_words_and_wellness on Instagram) performed his poem “DEI” next, lamenting the racism of language and erasure performed by various American institutions. The following poem compared the microaggression to a “racial titration,” through a rapid, concise, and device-filled poem amplifying the experiences of the African diaspora. In remembrance of the late African-American poet Amiri Baraka, Caldwell performs his piece “Somebody Blew Up America Pt. II,” calling attention to the historical erasure of Jackie Robinson’s life before becoming a baseball star when he refused to move to the seats in the back of a bus. 

Francis invited fellow poets on stage to share their own works: One performed a poem called “MAGA” (Mexicans Aren’t Going Anywhere) in response to the second Trump administration’s effort to erase non-white stories.  

Another poet from the audience, Keionna (@theangelkeiii on Instagram) emphasizes that “mixed girls don’t get categories, we get questions” in her poem “Still Becoming,” contributing to the lived experiences of multiracial people in America.  

Another impromptu poet, Zamir (@solraysunny on Instagram), performed an untitled piece which called into question the state of equity in America: “Why are you mad, Black girl? This is the land of opportunity,” they state sarcastically in one verse.  

Later, Francis performs “Casually Cruel” from their earlier chapbook MISEDUCATION, which was inspired by Zora Neale Hurston’s (author of Their Eyes Were Watching God) epigraph, “If you’re silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.” The poem expresses Francis’ honest experience in academia, and how the “university setting felt violent.” Pacing the stage with an active voice, their poem “Superlative” embraces rapid rhythm, repetition, assonance and other poetic devices that engage the audience and evoke emotions. In their poem “Bigger Person,” Francis describes themself as being “worn down to size extra, extra, extra-large,” a paradox of language that reflects feeling weighted by emotional catering to others. 

An open Q&A for the presenters gave insight into the poets’ writing processes and favorite methods. “Poems wait for you in a way no person will,” Francis notes, encouraging aspiring poets to put feelings to paper, rather than words. The Poet Laureate reveals their favorite literary devices to generate pieces are puns, homophones, and other forms of word play. Francis reports that their best poems come to life when “language is languaging.”  

Francis closes the event recommending the works of poet and activist June Jordan and novelist Octavia E. Butler, both of whom reportedly inspired their poetry career. The final poem, both relevant and powerful in presentation, was titled “I Want a Precedent,” inspired by Zoe Leonard’s earlier poem “I Want a President.” The poem was an artistic way of saying America’s democracy is deeply flawed and calls for a change of how Americans perceive society and each other: Outside of the digital and material riches, Francis emphasizes that “our commonwealth is already our common wealth.”  

For more empowering community events during Black History Month, don’t miss MSU’s ‘Afro Beats and R&Bingo’ on February 26th from 1:00 – 3:00 PM in Tivoli room 129.