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Health & Fitness

Slam Poetry with Billy Butler at the Mill Valley Public Library

Something very exciting is going on at the Mill Valley Library every Wednesday in July, at 7 PM. Billy Butler, slam poet extraordinaire, is teaching a series of Slam Poetry Workshops for high school students (and recent graduates). Billy has performed slam poetry everywhere from the Mill Valley Public Library to Carnegie Hall.  

Slam Poetry is a passion for Billy and he's excited to share that with the students in the workshops. Billy says, "I'm hoping to show participants in the workshop the ways performance poetry can interact with page poetry. Oftentimes, poets can write amazing things but when they read it out loud it sounds flat and boring, like they're ashamed to read what they wrote. Performance poetry is great at capturing an audience and bringing someone else into the poem, which is what I like about bringing those two things together."

In the first class, Billy got the creative wheels rolling with a wordbank. "Last week we read some poems together and talked about what we liked and didn't like, and then we did an exercise to help generate new poems. I told everyone in the workshop to make a list of things: animals, colors, places, emotions, articles of clothing, and more. I would give them a few moments to write down as much as they could in a given category, and then announce a new category to make a list in. Soon, everyone had a page full of words which they were able to use as a wordbank for a poem. It's scary to write something new. If you have words and ideas already prepared, then it's a lot easier to just associate those things together and then see what comes of that, as a way to start a poem."

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Students do not have to have attended a previous workshop to attend: they are welcome to register for one or all of the workshops.

Register here. If you would like to see Billy performing his work, you can check out his YouTube channel here.

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Katie’s Creative Writing Workshops for high school students will resume Wednesday nights in August and continue through the school year. More information about those workshops, as well as student writing, can be found here.

The Library has a buffet of great events for high school students this summer. In addition to the aforementioned workshops, young adults can also participate in the Choose Your Own Adventure Summer Reading Program, the Famous Last Words: Looking for Alaska Book Club, and the Factions Before Blood: Discussing the Divergent Trilogy Book Club. On August 18th, there will be a party in the Outdoor Amphitheater with food, drinks, a slam poetry performance, and the Summer Reading Raffle drawing.
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