The 3rd Annual Seb Jones ’13 Poetry Slam

On Friday, April 8, we held the 3rd annual Seb Jones Slam Poetry event in the Bryan Jones Theatre. Throughout the evening, we focussed not only on celebrating creativity but also on speaking about mental health and keeping Sebastian’s legacy alive. 

This year, the event was made even more special with the addition of a guest host. Peterborough’s Poet Laureate, Sarah Lewis, emceed for the evening and served as the sacrificial poet (a poet who goes first and gets scored by the judges but is not actually in the competition), reciting one of her own written works. 

Our students brought passion, emotion, and vulnerability to their spoken word poems. Congratulations to Rida ’23 and Harper ’22 for winning first place and to Stella ’25 and Waylon ’23 for winning second place. 

Mr. Gilfillan was particularly inspired by our students' display of courage. 

"The poetry was great, powerful, and resonant but beyond the words spoken, make no mistake, this was a display of raw courage. I was both inspired and humbled simply by being there. Almost every student who went up there read their poems from shaking hands and I am not sure how some people were able to stand as their legs shook like sewing machine needles (20 odd years in I feel the same making an announcement in the chapel). But they did. Twice. We talked about these sublime moments in class this morning. To those who shared original verse: What you did was terrifying and yet you did it anyway. Repeatedly. This, to me, is the singular definition of courage and it has an impact well beyond those standing at the mic. All of us who bore witness to this event were uplifted simply for being present." - Mr. Gilfillan