Slam poetry, the act of taking a poem and infusing it with theatrical elements, is more than a casual hobby-it's an art form. And on Wednesday, Feb. 11, Brandeis students had the opportunity to learn about it from master celebrated poet and our own dean of student life Jamele Adams. It was a night of relaxing fun in the Shapiro TV Lounge, complete with hot apple cider and cookies. Students who arrived early had time to socialize and get good spots on the couches before Adams arrived, and when he did, it was in a flurry of cold winter air and cheer.

While the event had been advertised as "Slam Poetry with Jamele Adams," very few details of the night's activities had been given out beforehand and most people in the room had little idea of what was going to happen. I, for one, was expecting a slam poetry performance, or maybe an impromptu poetry slam by members of the Brandeis Slam Team. Instead, Adams handed out pieces of notebook paper and instructed everyone to pick another person in the room and write a haiku about that person in three minutes. Noticing that Massell Quad Community Development Coordinator Brian Koslowski was in the room, he commented, "If you ever wanted to write about your CDC, here's your chance."

After about three minutes of frantic scribbling and numerous pauses to count syllables on our fingers, we had all completed passable haikus. Mine, I'm proud to say, did not end with either "refrigerator" or "hippopotamus" (both five-syllable "cop-out" words). The room favorite was written for the wonderful Brian Koslowski himself:

"Why are you happy?/Things in the world are real bad./I want your hairstyle."

"Poetry," Dean Adams said when everyone had finished giggling over haikus, "is expression. It's the ability to have a voice and be heard."

His words hit home, especially given the time in which they were spoken. In addition to February being Black History Month, a commemoration of the struggles minorities fought through in order to get their voices heard and a celebration of that achievement, Brandeis students are working more than ever to get their voices heard in the wake of major University decisions being made without their input. Poetry has been used to voice protest for generations, from political unrest to teenage rebellion, and as Adams put it, the best way to use it is to bring it to life.

To demonstrate the difference between a poetry reading and a poetry slam, he invited Brandeis Slam Team member Sara Kass Levy '12 up to recite one of her original poems. "Just say it," he told her, and she actually stared blankly at him for a moment before fixing her gaze on the wall and started off in a jumble of words and phrases, blurring together almost incomprehensibly. He stopped her after a few moments and asked the assembled students what they thought.

When no one responded positively, Adams asked Levy to recite it as a slam poem. And suddenly, everything changed. She stood straighter; her voice got stronger; and she brought the poem to life, filling the entire room with emotion and power. When she finished, the room was completely silent for a long moment before everyone burst into applause.

"Slam poetry is about bringing it from the page to the stage," Adams said. "Slam is the most imperfect competition ever, imperfect and subjective because no two people will ever hear a poem the same way. But that's what makes it beautiful."

As a final exercise, he asked us to write a poem about a superhero of our own creation. It needed to have a ride, a journey, a climax and a voice. When we finished writing, he invited us to read our poems to the group, but he wanted us to "slam" them- and if he felt it wasn't being read with enough emotion, he'd have us do it again. Some of the poems were funny-"Napkin Man," "Yes Man"-while some were deeper-"The Muse," "The Maverick"-but they all accomplished their purpose: showing us the thrill of writing something and bringing it to life.

Adams finished the evening with a parting piece of wisdom. "Words," he said, "are the most powerful things in the world. They can start wars, they can break hearts, they can save lives. Words are the most powerful things in the world.