A slam dunk through poetry: College kids help popularising spoken word poetry
Growing up in today’s judgmental world is hard enough for students and youth, with diminishing space for one to truly express themselves. Fighting to save those spaces is Abhinav Arora, third year engineering student from Manipal University whose online student group Soul Journal has been organising slam poetry events across the country since the start of the year — each called Soul Slam.
Slam poetry has been on the rise in the country, thanks to groups like Soul Journal, whose Soul Slam held its fourth edition in Hyderabad on Sunday. “There are people who express themselves through art, who seek solace through art, who write or paint or dance for themselves. And slam poetry is a very good example of such an art form,” explains Abhinav.
With no time limits and allowance for performers to even express themselves through storytelling, the event was first held in Bengaluru in January, followed by two more in Mumbai and Delhi.
“When you rhyme or rap or perform spoken word poetry, the words are pleasant to the ears. Say there’s a friend of yours who has just broken up with their partner and wants to vent to you. There may be a lot of negativity but when it’s done through poetry, it takes on a positive nature and people actually want to listen to you,” Abhinav says, explaining why they chose to pursue the art form.
Soul Journal is an online platform started by Abhinav in 2015 to help promote art forms from his contemporary peers.
“The vision is to inculcate self belief, because humans, I think are pretty sadistic beings. They like to pull each other down. They’re also very conformist — people take up engineering because everyone else is doing the same. This platform allows people to introspect and be led by their souls. The problem we’re trying to address is soul searching — that’s how Soul Journal came to be,” says Abhinav.
The group also has around 30 contributors from around the world, some coming from as far away as Egypt and the Netherlands
