Mahhem Poets Visit Garden City High School

Scott, MC and Mason of the Mayhem Poets

On the Wednesday before the long Thanksgiving Day weekend, every student in Garden City High School was treated to the rhyming antics of the Mayhem Poets, a Jersey City-based trio of guys in their mid-20s dedicated to the performance of stand-up poetry. With fast-paced, rhyming, clever wordplay and topics that appeal distinctly to their specific audience, the free-form poetry performance is known today as "slam" poetry. It can be likened to intelligent and moral rap but without the music.

In one routine called "This is a Test of the Emergency Poetry Broadcast System", Mayhem ran through a litany of references to past and present TV shows, all the while injecting noble themes such as "I wish the world would stop fighting" or "I wish politicians would keep their promises". In another, they rhymed about the harm that comes from spreading rumors about others at lunch tables. And, in yet another very funny routine, they used computer related terms to substitute for more normal words that would be used to describe a relationship between a girl and a boy. Mayhem addresses some weighty issues but interjects a megadose of comedy into each routine. Their poetry-is-fun act screams about the intense power of words to demoralize or to inspire, to educate and to entertain. Their choice of topics, their creativity and their imagination connected in a big way with their audience of high school aged students.

This program was coordinated by the Arts in Education Committee of the Garden City School District Parent Teacher Association funded by the Garden City Union Free School District.