Issue date: 4/16/08 Section: Campus

Media Credit: Katrina Du GREEK POET | Poems were slammed for charity at the Bronfman Center.

There were cheers, clapping and finger snapping last night as students performed Slam Poetry while helping raise money to restore music programs in America's public schools.

"Poetry slam is like family," Alpha Sigma Tau sister and slam poet Rachel Abrams told the audience. "If you hear something you like, you snap, you stomp your feet, you do whatever."

As part of Greek Week, the Spoken Word/Slam Poetry for a Cause was held at the Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life. Abrams got four professional poets to perform: Jamie Kilstein, Mahogany Brown, Caitlin Meissner and Roger Bonair-Agard. Bonair-Agard has been featured on Comedy Central and Def Poetry Jam on HBO.

Alpha Sigma Tau and Alpha Epsilon Pi co-sponsored the event as part of the Greek Week festivities. All of the proceeds went to VH1's Save the Music campaign, which raises money for public school music programs.

Kilstein started off the night with poems such as "Why I Lit My Radio On Fire and Threw It Off the Balcony" and "Can the Gays Adopt Yet: A Rhetorical Poem."

Steinhardt junior Adam Horne's favorite was Kilstein. "Jamie was really funny," Horne said. "He mixed stand-up comedy with slam poetry."

After Kilstein, Brown recited several of her poems, including "The Kiss Count," in which she goes through the list of how many men she has kissed. Meissner's poems centered around social activism, and Bonair-Agard's focused on music to go with the theme of the fundraiser.

Abrams said that this was different from the other Greek Week events because it was the only one that focused on performance art.

"This was a nice way to bring the Greek community together for something that most people don't normally experience," she said.

Zeta Beta Tau brother Michael Catania said that this was his fist time at a spoken word event.

"Poetry is about moving people - yourself and others," Catania said. "It is about everything and nothing at the same time, which is what I like about it."

Two students in the Greek community went onstage to recite their own poetry - Abrams and Delta Lambda Phi member Fernando Contreras, a Tisch sophomore.

"The poem is a self-reflective rant that has been 12 years in the making," Contreras said. "I've only read it in front of my class, and I wanted to see how it would go in front of strangers."

Contreras said that he just started writing poetry and going to the event helped to inspire him.

"The poets were phenomenal and inspiring," Contreras said, "because their work meant something to them and you could see it and hear it."


Lisa Euker is a staff writer. E-mail her at campus@nyunews.com.

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