Poetry Slam (1st Place)
Eli Denison, Housemaster
A distinctive of many classical schools is the incorporation of a House system, a program designed to develop community, camaraderie, and healthy competition within the student body. At Petra, that is the purpose of our eight houses: Avilion, Bedivere, Enid, Excalibur, Galahad, Gawain, Nimue, and Pendragon. These groups of students are integrated across the grades, incorporating 7th-12th grade students in each house, while also making each house co-ed. Students then have the opportunity to interact with other students that they don’t normally see during the day.
The houses compete for the House Cup through a series of fun competitions that challenge their athletic, artistic, academic, and dramatic skills in traditional and non-traditional activities such as relay races, paper plane building contests, and medieval games of skill and chance. The benefit of students engaging in these light-hearted competitions is that it gives them an opportunity to encourage one another.
Most recently, our Secondary students enjoyed Petra’s first ever Poetry Slam, an element of the artistic competition. Students spent several weeks looking at the Fruit of the Spirit as described in Galatians 5:22-23 and were challenged to write a poem that reflected one or all of the virtues listed. Nineteen students took up the challenge and then presented before the student body, with two of our Humanities teachers scoring their efforts both in writing and presentation.
The winning poem was “Love” by 11th grader Maya Moody, a villanelle poem describing the work of the Holy Spirit in restoration. The particular style of poem that she wrote has a notoriously difficult structure to follow, which gave her just enough of an edge to win the competition (we’ll post the 2nd-5th place entries later this week):
Love
by Maya Moody, 11th grade
In fullest love the godhead hovering
With brightness cov’ring nothingness in light.
The breath ignites the formless man to life.
The sovereign unseen hand uncovering
The promised sons amid the starry night
The Holy Ghost restoring men from strife.
To fall from high for man’s discovering
With white-hot feathers on incarnate light
The breath ignites the formless man to life.
With snap and crack the hearts of men recovering
The flames baptizing them in burning white
The Holy Ghost restoring men from strife.
When uncouth Hebrew mouths are uttering
In foreign tongues the power of his might
The breath ignites the formless man to life.
The spirit o’er his church is hovering
With beating wings to fan the faithful light
The Holy Ghost restoring men from strife
The breath ignites the formless man to life.
Read our 2nd and 3rd place entries and our 4th and 5th place entries.