Students used their voices and unique rhythms to address important issues and current events through slam poetry. The poets stood on stage with a cool confidence to execute their piece correctly and grab the audience’s attention.

The Poetry Club worked hard to take second place in the “Louder Than A Bomb” competition on Thursday, Mar. 10 in Kansas City.

Selected members of the Poetry Club traveled to compete with their prepared slam poetry pieces.

“We had a miniature try-out to see who would actually be competing and then we decided on individual poets, and who would be in our group,” sophomore Claire Walther said. “We had workdays, after school practices where we would write our pieces and go through them with each other.”

The members of the club were excited from the beginning to be participating in a competition where they can showcase their talent. But the big competition, where a total of 5 high schools competed, put pressure on the students when it came time to compete.

“It was so scary and when I performed I forgot like half of my poem so I stood there for a few seconds,” Walther said.

The poetry club took second place at their preliminaries and will advance to the semifinals at the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City on Tuesday, Mar. 29.

Poetry is an artistic medium that can convey a diverse amount of emotions and allow people like members of the Poetry Club to branch out and reach wider audiences.

“I joined [poetry club] because it’s a cool club and poetry is fun, it’s exciting,” Walther said.