School’s out in Cleveland, and 10 teenagers are kicking off the summer with some extra cash in their pockets. They didn’t earn the money flipping burgers or babysitting. Instead, they got paid for their poetry at the second annual Montgomery-Hill Poetry Slam.
Justice B. Hill, a semi-retired journalist and Glenville High School graduate, created the event with his family. They wanted to honor Hill’s parents and their commitment to education.
“We have to find a way to support kids who don't play sports, the kids who are artists, the kids who are musicians, people who are writers,” he said.
Hill was inspired by a similar event at Ohio University, where he taught for a decade, as well as his love of spelling bees.
“I looked at the poetry slam as being an urban version of spelling bees,” he said. “Those who like words, who play with words. I love to see these kids do that.”
Last year’s event coincided with the National Association of Black Journalists’ convention in Cleveland. This year Hill moved it to John Hay High School in University Circle on May 12. The competition was open to students in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.
Two of this year’s top three finalists were lovestruck.
Taraji Clark, who’ll be a junior this fall at the Cleveland School of the Arts, performed “My Distant Lover” and won $1,000 for taking third place.
“My creative writing teacher had us practicing in class, going over our poems,” she said. “He was really kind of strict about it, which is good, because his strictness made me want to do good because I didn't want to disappoint him.”
Madisyn Ward, a rising senior at the Cleveland School of Science & Medicine, performed her piece, “Sickly but Sweet.”
"Love is not only that sweet, syrupy thing that you want to feel … it could also be a poison,” she said.
She finished second, winning $1,500, which she hopes to put toward a car or her eventual goal of being a veterinarian. First prize went to another rising senior from the School of the Arts, Leylah Larkin.
"My sister made me perform,” she said. “In her words, my pieces were ‘really powerful and the people deserve to hear it.’"
Larkin won $5,000 for “Generational Curses,” and she said she’ll use some of the money for her birthday party and to spoil a few friends who supported her.
The other participants received $250 prizes. Organizers considered offering scholarships instead of cash, but Hill said they didn’t want to limit how or when the students could use the money. By next year, he said he hopes to increase the prize pool to $10,000.
