On November 17th I attended Ignite The Flame: A Poetry Slam. It was a competition to determine the 2017-2018 College Union Poetry Slam Invitational team. In three rounds, five poets poured their hearts and souls into the words they had written as they spoke them into words. The way it worked was each of the five poets would perform one poem each round. There were three rounds total. During performances, if you heard something that really hit you, you’d snap applause. At the end of each performance a panel of judges would score the poet and then “God” would announce the total scores. If the audience or fellow poets didn’t agree with the scores they would yell “Listen to the poem!” “Listen to the poem!” was yelled pretty much every time… After round two, Alysia Harris took the stage. Harris is a founding member of the performance poetry collective and has been touring nationally and internationally for the last five years. She has her MFA in poetry from NYU and completed her doctorate in linguistics at Yale University. Alysia performed pieces that she said were “works in progress”, never even rehearsed. But she could’ve fooled all of us in that room from the way she delivered her words. After Harris, round three began. Once the poets had finished their last poems the middle score, not the best or worst, was calculated. “God” announced the winner and all was said and done.
All this is to say that every one of these poets is a leader. They have taken charge of their thoughts, emotions, and experiences. They wrote them down, put them to paper, and spoke them into words. Whether they are reflecting or processing they are leaders in their own right. William Cronon states that the liberally educated can “write clearly and persuasively and movingly” and that “they read and they understand”. When Cronon lists his fourth point he stresses the importance of the writer’s ability to express what is in their mind and heart so as to move the person receiving their words. Does the poet not do just that? The connections between Cronon’s list and leadership qualities are clear and I have argued before that there is not only a correlation but a causation between the two. Having said that, I believe that It is fair to say that because Cronon says that a liberally educated person should be able to read and write, the poets are therefore leaders.
