Issue link: http://latinschool.uberflip.com/i/133180
Blair Marshall '13 For Blair Marshall getting up on stage to share her poetry is terrifying. She describes the sick feeling she gets in her stomach as being akin to "the side effects from taking an aspirin." Blair claims she is not a performer. Yet she loves the sass, attitude and rhythm of slam poetry. It is a moment in time that allows her to transform herself. Slam poetry also is a medium that fits well with how Blair finds inspiration in the world around her. "I am not that creative," says Blair. "I am just really good at stating stuff. I can't come up with a story as awesome as Harry Potter, but I can describe how the ball roles across the table in a suspense-filled, detailed way." Blair has a passion for observing and then precisely describing the mundane details of life, often with surprising and unusual results that are in some way lyrical. She is always writing. At one time she thought that she would be a novelist or a short story author. More recently, she has turned increasingly to her blog and poetry. "If it is a long rant it goes on my blog. If it is a funny tidbit, I usually just tell someone. Or, I'll use it later in a poem or story. Sometimes things are just the perfect length for a haiku. Like, the other day, I was walking along the street and saw something that I could turn into a haiku on the spot: 'That 2-yearold child is better dressed than I am but is on a leash.'" Blair first tried her hand at slam poetry in sixth grade during the biannual Middle School Poetry Day. Although it was only her second year at Latin, support from her teachers and peers gave Blair the confidence to perform. "I think it allowed me to run with it, and I came in second place. That was huge." Much like Poetry Day provides an innovative forum through which students can learn to appreciate poetry – workshops offered during the event last year included Parking Guys Poetry and Writing Bad Poetry – the willingness among her teachers to allow for creativity and out-of-the-box thinking in any class continually inspires Blair. "I was walking along the street and saw something that I could turn into a haiku on the spot: 'That 2-year-old child is better dressed than I am but is on a leash.'" She can feel just as passionate about crafting a science essay about the planets as about writing a 300-word description of the eighth-grade retreat or creating a poem about Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X for history class. For someone like Blair who appreciates words and what they conjure up in her mind, Latin allows her to be the girl who can find her voice as a slam poet and at the same time discover the beauty in a critical essay or research project. The Poet who Can • So all that singing and dancing you are expecting me to do. It'll happen. Oh, just you wait. I will give you a show that you won't forget or regret until – four score and seven years into the future. I don't sing. I don't dance. I'm not in the play. Nothing but net in my dreams. But up here: I can. Beginning of the poem, "Yes. I can" for which Blair Marshall won the middle school slam poetry competition. Latin School of Chicago 25