Slam Poetry

I hope everyone had a nice holiday, time off from school, or whatever. I know I’ve been a little slack with the blog, but I was at a conference in NYC where I got to hear a lot of teen authors speak. While I was there, I also saw a group of students from an organization called Urban Word who performed slam poetry - which was way cool. Here is a performance from one of the annual Urban Word NYC Teen Poetry Slams:

Jaylene

I know we have a lot of teens in the county who are talented and interested in expressing themselves in a similar way. I am going to work on putting together some poetry programs and hope to see many of you come out and show your stuff!

Beowulf, adaptation by Gareth Hinds

Okay, so you’ve been assigned to read Beowulf for English class. Or maybe you’ve seen the previews for the movie and think, hmmmmm….. that looks pretty good. Oh my gosh! It’s based on a poem! I might want to actually read that.

Well, Gareth Hinds has taken the epic poem Beowulf and put it into graphic novel format (for those of us who like to look at pictures).  Having never actually read the original work, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. But I have to say, the artwork is pretty amazing.  The reader is immediately swept into Viking lore and legend and the fighting scenes definitely leave you sitting (or reading) on the edge of your seat.

If you have been afraid to tackle Beowulf before, I would not hesitate to read it in this format. The story is easy to follow and accompanied by powerful illustrations. Hooray for comics! Um… I mean, graphic novels!

MTV Virtual Video Contest

And just so long as you’re feeling creative (you know, from rapping at RapHappy), you might as well make your own music video, too. MTV, along with Metacafe, is sponsoring a Virtual Worlds Virtual Music Video Contest.

If you enter, you’ll have access to music tracks, video clips and online editing tools to create your own music video which will be posted on Metacafe for judging. The winner will receive a Sony Vegas Pro 8 Professional AV Editing and DVD Creation System and entries are due December 2.

Can you freestyle?

Finally… a website devoted to rapping. According to the creators of this site “everyone has a bit of rapper in them,” and now you have the place to express it! RapHappy.com is a freestyle battle site where you can create your own raps or add to other people’s. You can rap from your phone or computer and then add it to your MySpace, Facebook, blog or personal website. You can even do battle with other users.

Right now, there’s a contest going on for $500 and the theme is Nerdcore: “here’s your big chance to rap about video games, your new iPhone, your love for free WiFi — whatever gets your nerdy blood boiling.” I love it! I know you guys are full of creative juices, so get’em flowing and check out this site. (They even use this image of an old-school cassette player. Do you even know what that is?!?)