» By Myranda Harrison
Staff Writer

Students expressed their creativity through lyrical performances at the Wilber N. Daniels African American Culture Center’s third annual Peay Soup Spoken Word Competition in Einstein’s Bros Bagels on Tuesday, April 16.

Students entertained the packed crowd at Einstein’s with creative poems, songs and other lyrical performances. Summer Barry, a senior at APSU, and Shawn Smith, a talented southern word poet, hosted the lyrical showcase and competition.

Mani Jones, a freshman business major took the stage first. She shared what she called is “A Letter to the Government.” When she finished, she left the audience in an uproar.
“That’s how you start a slam,” Smith said.

Other student contestants also took the stage and entertained the audience with their words. Senior English major Whitney Beaird shared a piece she called “A Day in the Life.”

Kasean Edmondson, a freshmen business major shared “Hipo-con-tri-ca-tion,” a piece about female sexuality, relationships and womanhood. Freshmen communications major, Crysta Crum took the stage and spoke about her love for books.

Other topics at the event included students’ speaking of self-love, forgiveness, being dysfunctional, reaching one’s dreams and some took a religious approach.

To get the audience involved and the contestants warmed up, the event started off with a “pre-slam.” Whoever wanted to participate received a pencil and a piece of paper and was given several words. The object was to come up with spoken word pieces in a short amount of time and share what had been written with the audience. No one in the audience got on stage to present.

African American studies assistant professor Johnny Jones, who was one of three judges that got up and shared poems he said are some of his favorites and some that he had written as well.

“I wrote these a long time ago so forgive me if they suck” Jones said.

Smith also shared a poem of his, entitled “Sudden Words.”

Once this got the audience excited and worked up, the competition began and there were more than 10 contestants competing.

Mani Jones won the competition and was awarded a $200 gift card to Governor’s Square Mall. Whitney Beaird won second place and was awarded a $175 gift card to Governor’s Square Mall. Anna Holden won third place and was awarded a $50 Plus Dollar card.