Pick a topic about which you feel strongly. It can be serious or funny, deep or heartwarming, but you should feel personally connected to the topic so that your delivery of it will be genuine.
• Your topic should not be something that will offend or hurt any particular person or a group of people.
• You should have a clear message about your topic (theme) that you wish to share with the audience.
Slam Poetry Prompts: (Suggestions Only)
-Write about a significant event in your life
-Write a poem about someone you admire. You don’t have to know or love someone to pay tribute to them. Write a poem honoring one of your heroes, someone who has, from a distance, made a difference in your life.
-Write a poem about something that happened to someone you know. Write about it as if it had happened to you.
-Write a poem about your shadow. (Some ideas for brainstorming: How does it change when you move? What does it look like in different kinds of light, in different situations? What would happen if you lost it? Does it have a secret life?)
-Write a poem in the form of a message or letter to your future self.
-Write a poem about something or someone you lost.
-Write a poem about your family heritage.
-A person, pet, or object you have lost that was important to you, and the experience of getting or losing him/her/it
-An especially good or bad day in your recent experience, and how you felt on that day
-Advice you received from a friend, parent, or teacher that seems especially good or especially bad (you can respond to the advice, or explain what happened when you followed/failed to follow it)
-A travel experience that challenged you or taught you something worthwhile
-Write a poem that includes allusion to other texts (hip hop lyrics, movie lines, slogans) to make a social commentary on some aspect of the media.
-Write a poem about the pressures, challenges, joys, and issues teenagers face every day.
Sample Solution
