Testimonies

Recently, I got to be an instructor with Slam Connection's Poetry Slam Summer Workshop. As a team, we worked together to build youth poets and their writing, also giving them the advice and encouragement needed to get on stage at the end of the program and perform.

It was so refreshing to learn that these students were getting the same encouragement in their own schools, whether they already graduated or were on the way to graduation.

This made me look back on my own journey through high school.

I loved writing then too. I had notebooks filled with lyrics and poems, and there were the occasional poetry projects throughout English class. But my school didn't have any creative writing clubs. There was no magnet program to grow this art, and from what I remember of that time, there were no programs in my neighborhood libraries or community centers to push this. As proud as I was of my work, I was also scared to put it out, unless it was in contests that my teachers promoted. I needed an extra push or jumped straight to singing because that's what people were more used to.

I have learned that each poem is a story, a testimony, and we are not supposed to sit on these. Someone is meant to hear the poem we've worked so hard to memorize or read the piece we spent days editing to get published somewhere. Our poems are not just our thoughts or feelings; they are lessons someone needs to learn from.

So, at the showcase, I was asked what advice I would have liked to hear when I was a youth poet, and I said, "Just do it. Just go do the thing." If I had heard those words sooner, I would have found the joy of the stage and sharing my work sooner. I would have found my voice sooner and had more confidence in it.

If you know a young person right now who is working on any writing, give them the opportunity to share their work or place to learn how to share their work. Not only will they come to love their voice, but you will see just what work God is doing in their lives right now.