By Ashley Bird | The Marshfield Times

Hundreds of chairs form a semi-circle around the dimly lit stage. The empty seats begin to fill with supportive parents, students and community members and they wait anxiously. Judges look over the rubrics preparing to hear the poets, 7 p.m. arrives, a poet steps on stage and begins to slam.

The biannual poetry slam took place Tuesday night in the cafeteria and featured 28 MHS students, delivering 22 poems to an audience of roughly 350 people. The poets presented their original poems and, in turn, received applause from the audience and feedback in the form of scores from the evening’s judges, including English teachers Kelly Haut and Luke Parrish, and seniors Ayasha Thurman, Will Moriarty and Steven Pederson.

Haut expressed her gratitude towards the poets.

“I think it’s very impressive that they had the guts to get up there,” Haut said.

Senior Jennifer Scott and junior Michael Stephens tied for first place, both earning 29 out of 30 points and each attaining three perfect 10s out of five possible scores.

Scott presented her poem, “Breaking Through,” which described who she is and her ambitions. She was pleased with her performance and was excited about how well she scored.

“I really like to interact with the crowd. Performing is my favorite thing to do,” Scott said.

Stephens presented his humorous poem, “Watch Your Language,” which expressed his dislike of the word “big.”

“This year, by the eighth graders, I’ve been called big a lot so I decided to write my poem to display my resentment towards that,” Stephens said.

Stephens was unsure if he was going to win after his performance, but said seeing two 10s by the judges eased his nerves a little.

Scott and Stephens split the first place prize, $80 worth of gift cards from WalMart.

Second place was a tie between a trio of eighth graders, Kaylee Krajcir, Ling Ling Zhu, and Kianna Bruekner, for their poem, “Time is Running Out,” and junior McKenzi Seggerman for her poem, “Kory.”

Third place was awarded to Junior Cody Glenn, who left the stage and interacted with the crowd while presenting his poem, “Nocturne.”

Honorable Mention awards were presented to sophomore Quentin Kirk for his poem, “Little Brother,” and eighth grader Daisy Caballero’s poem, “Sincerely.”

“Even the Honorable Mentions had 26 out of 30 points, and that’s still a really high score,” English teacher and poetry slam host Scott Peters said.

While scores were being tabulated at the end of the slam, juniors Chase Davidson and Jonathan Mapilisan entertained the audience by singing their original songs, “Our Glass” and “Daisy.”

Peters was happy to host the slam and thought the event was great.

“The poetry, overall, was very positive,” Peters said. “It was a more uplifting slam than what we’ve had in the past, I think.”