When Taylor Seaberg (‘15) first started performing spoken word pieces, she did not know that poetry could be used for activism and social justice.

Now that Hamline’s poetry slam team is heading to College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational (CUPSI) for its fifth straight year, it is becoming clearer just how much power a poet’s words can have.

Taking place March 25-29 in Richmond, VA, Seaberg, Alix Dahl (‘16), Jacob Bernstein (‘17), and Adrienne Novy (‘18) all expect to make the trip.

The four students heading to Richmond, Virginia Mar. 25-29 to perform at CUPSI are Seaberg, Alix Dahl (‘16), Jacob Bernstein (‘17), and Adrienne Novy (‘18).

The team’s manager, Lewis Mundt, graduated from Hamline’s Creative Writing BFA program in 2012, and one of the coaches, Thressa Johnson, graduated with an English degree in 2013. The team’s second coach, Cristopher Gibson, was formerly a coach for the Carleton slam team.

So what does a slam team do, exactly? Five judges score each poet on a scale of 0.0 to 10.0 and drop the highest and lowest score, leaving a composite score of a possible 30.0 points for each poem. The poets who made it on the team each qualified not only during individual slams, but during a grand slam held in January.

This time, the poets will be performing their own pieces in front of a nationally standardized panel of judges, facing up against dozens of colleges from across the nation.

Johnson, who was previously a member of Hamline’s CUPSI team before she was a coach, likened pre-competition jitters to her musical theater performances in high school. There is always “a feeling of being not ready,” she said, “but you always are ready.”

Johnson emphasized how much work this year’s team has put in, especially in the face of funding challenges that almost prevented the team from attending CUPSI at all.

Mundt coached the slam team from 2012-14, but stepped back this year to act as a director for the team, securing finances and travel arrangements. He said that the team has mostly relied on a HUSC convention grant in the past, but due to rising costs of the competition and travel expenses, there was a significant shortfall between what a HUSC grant was able to give and what the team needed.

That is where Professor Kristin Mapel Bloomberg, Hamline University’s Endowed Chair in the Humanities, stepped in. Through her endowment, Mapel Bloomberg funded the team for the next two years.

Gibson said that the uncertainty added extra challenges for poets and coaches alike. Regarding the team’s training schedule, he said that “teams usually have two to three months, but we had roughly one month.”

“This team has consistently gone a step further,” said Gibson. “[They are] very dedicated.”

How do the poets feel about the opportunity?

For Dahl, slam poetry is still a novel activity. Her process of poetry comes mostly from everyday thoughts, thinking of a single line or a personal struggle.  “I Frankenstein [poems] together from other pieces.”

Dahl said she is especially looking forward to watching other artists’ performances.

Novy, nicknamed Addy, said that she doesn’t look for themes in her work, which ranges from poems about ableism to a love poem between a mantle clock and a refrigerator.

“Our team is like a family,” said Novy.

Seaberg, who also attended CUPSI in her sophomore year, said she is both scared of the competition and looking forward to it. Her poems are strongly socially minded, but above all, “I’m a big storyteller,” she said. “I try not to use [my poems] for a soapbox. I want them to be real stories, personable.”

Whether the Hamline slam team wins big this year or not–they have been the recipient of a number of awards in the past, said Mundt–the poets, coaches, and manager all emphasized one thing:

“Going to Virginia will be awesome.”