Update: April 12, 2015

Sophomore Bisa Adero and juniors Devin Evans and Jaxon Jenkins had strong performances on Saturday, April 11, with Jenkins and Adero advancing past the first round. Adero’s performance landed her a spot in the finals, where she earned the number four spot of youth slam poet in St. Louis. There was a .5 point difference between the third and fourth place spots.

Team sponsor Cindy Kalachek was pleased with the results.

“For our tenth and eleventh graders to do this well and go against twelfth graders who were trained over years is amazing and speaks to the performance skill of our GCAA students,” Kalachek said.

For the team competition, at 3:00 on April 12, freshman Quinlan Holt and sophomores Keshun Payne and Chastity Smith will join Adero, Evans and Jenkins. The competition will take place at UrbArts, located at 2600 N. 14th Street.

Original story, April 9, 2015

Poetic Soulz, the new slam poetry team, competed in their first two rounds of competition, on Friday and Saturday, April 3rd and 4th, at the 14th Street Mall. They won both of the rounds against two other teams (the two teams were different each time), called bouts, with total scores of 101.5 and 102.1, the team is currently ranked fourth in St. Louis. For more on individual and team scores, see the full results here.

The team competes again on Saturday, April 11 at UrbArts in Old North St. Louis. The bout begins at 5. UrbArts is located at 2600 N. 14th Street, near Crown Candy Kitchen. Sophomore Bisa Adero, whose near-perfect score in the first round clinched the team’s victory and juniors Devin Evans and Jaxon Jenkins will compete.

Four poets from the team will compete in the Team Grand Slam on Saturday, April 18, at a location to be determined.

In addition to Adero, Evans and Jenkins, Poetic Soulz is comprised of Quinlan Holt, freshman, and Keshun Payne and Chastity Smith, both sophomores. The team is sponsored by Cindy Kalachek and Evan Smith.