Three hundred audience members sat in silence last Wednesday night in the Little Theater as slam poet Sabrina Nargiz’s words pierced the air and sent chills down spines.

Nargiz, a first-year Slam Poetry Team member, was the first of six Redwood poets to perform at this year’s Poetry Slam competition, which featured poets from Redwood, Tam, and Drake.

Redwood retained their winning title for a fourth consecutive year. In addition to winning the title, each team member walked away with a $100 cash prize.

“I was really proud of us,” Nargiz said. “I put my heart on the table.”

According to Nargiz, sophomore, the team’s spirit was what won them the competition.

“I feel like our energy is what set us apart from our competitors,” she said. “We work a lot in the club on trying to make people feel your poems and the environment and the gestures you do.”

The slam consisted of three rounds—two rounds of three individual poems from each team and one round of group poems. Each poem was given a score out of 10 by three unbiased audience members who were chosen minutes before the slam.

Redwood won the first round, and featured a duet poem by seniors Max Friend and Grace Gravley and two individual poems by Nargiz and senior Zev Shearn-Nance.

Nargiz said her poem was inspired by an argument she had with her mother about lifestyle expectations.

“It’s about what she wants me to be versus what I am,” Nargiz said. “She got in a fight with me, and in my mind I thought of the first line of my poem. It was, ‘You’re an artist, you say.’ She’s really into art, but it kind of has a double meaning, like she’s painting my life. I thought I could really play with that.”

From there, she said, the rest of the poem flowed.

“In the middle of the night, I’ll think of a rhyme and I’ll write it on my phone,” Nargiz said. “And in the morning I’ll either think ‘that’s cool’ or ‘that’s not cool,’ and if I like it I’ll work off it.”

Nargiz said she was nervous going into her first poetry slam, but felt more confidence once she was on stage.

“There’s something about being on stage that makes you act different, but in a good way,” Nargiz said. “While I was doing it, I was like, ‘You wrote these words for a reason.’ I was saying them because I had them etched in my brain and they were mine to say and I wanted people to hear them.”

Redwood lost in a close second round to Drake with individual poems by senior Ben Suliteanu and juniors Matt Cummings and Rayna Saron.

Saron, who co-captains the team with Gravley, presented a poem about science and the universe. She said she was inspired by a comment made by team adviser Alex Franklin last year during slam practice.

“We were talking about making our poems general enough so people can understand them, but not too general,” Saron said. “He said, kind of joking, ‘Don’t write a poem about fractals because no one will get what you’re talking about.’ And my response was, ‘But fractals are awesome! Why not write a poem about fractals?’”

Saron said she wanted audience members to connect with her poem.

“I really like science and I hear a lot of times from my peers that science is stupid or irrelevant,” Saron said. “I urge my listeners to move beyond what’s relevant, like your career or your grades, and think about how cool science is. The fact that we exist at all is really incredible.”

The second round was followed by a final round of collaborative poems which were performed by each team. Redwood won the final round with a choreographed group poem about books.

According to Saron, the team spent a lot of time writing their poems, workshopping ideas and presentation, memorizing, and giving advice to each other. During the spring semester they met once a week during lunch, and during the two weeks before the slam they met every day during lunch, most days during seventh period, and the weekend before the competition for two eight-hour practice sessions.

Saron also said that the team tried to find the right balance between dark and light subject matter.

“A lot of times, especially with young people, there’s a tendency to go really dark and angsty in slam poetry,” Saron said. “I honor and understand that it’s great that people can express themselves through poetry that way, but Mr. Ryan said that that’s not poetry, that’s group therapy. The best slam poems are the ones that can balance that—that can have an emotional connection but can also function on a lot of different levels.”

Nargiz said that the team is very happy with the win and plans on celebrating.

“We put it all on the table and there’s nothing I would have changed about it,” Nargiz said.