Imagine UBC is the start of many new beginnings. In an original poem composed, spoken, and filmed by current students, UBC Slam Poetry challenges you to lose yourself and find yourself again and again throughout your time at the Faculty of Arts. Embrace the confusion, the uncertainties, and the wonder. Use your time at UBC to learn, discover, create, and grow.
Video Credits
Acting by Nicole Ebbutt, Joseph Lyons, and Jenny Xu
Narration and editing by Emily Mao
Videography by Ananya Aravindan
New Beginnings
Written collaboratively by Ananya Aravindan, Emily Mao, and Jenny Xu.
LEARN, UNLEARN, GROW
We have arrived from far and wide
To learn and seek the truth
We are all but students
Humbled and awed by that which we don’t know
There’s so much that we don’t know
But this is our chance to learn
To discover, to explore
To create and grow
We are artists and artisans
Makers in the making
Cartographers of creation
We are passion
Dedication
Inspiration, remember
Success is 99% perspiration
So don’t tire
The road may be long
and the last thing for you to worry is to walk it alone
FIND NEW FRIENDS
It’s like diving into a swimming pool,
We fumble around in darkness,
Among the jagged skylines and hidden edges.
We struggle to find
A guiding light
A compass, an anchor, a northward star.
But perhaps we just fell into a boundless ocean of possibilities.
Perhaps when shouldering our way through a crowd
We are not going against but together with them.
Perhaps the excuse me’s take our eyes to meet
Someone else’s.
Perhaps the reason we spin
Countless dizzying circles trying to find ourselves
Roam boulevards and alleyways till we lose sight of the sea
Is to see who will be there to steady us afterwards
That we don’t have to feel elsewhere
That we belong
Here.
DISCOVER NEW PASSIONS
Before we can map out our world, we must map out ourselves
The skylights and skyscrapers bring vertigo of the bewildered kind
Gazing down on the cityscape of our own psyche and wondering
When we dream, what is it that lights a fire in our souls?
Music or dance or art
Chess or books or sports
The thrill of the game, the spotlight on stage
Like sunflowers grow towards the light
So too will you lean and reach and strive
To find your sun, your hidden passion
That ties your heart on a leash
So challenge the boundaries of what you thought you cannot
Open the doors you thought had been locked
With eyes wide open, we discover our fascination
We are writers of our own stories,
Waking dreamers in a world of our creation
EXPRESS YOURSELF
Remember the child you were
Picture the person you someday wish to be
We don’t so much grow older
As we do disassemble and reassemble ourselves
Puzzle piece parts that we collect from the paths we choose
Until pieces of the world
Become pieces of ourselves
Identity is a life-long treasure hunt
Here is just one checkpoint
A chance
To restructure the entity that is you
To write your own definitions
Remember
There will be roadblocks
There will be bad days and worse mornings
You will stumble and fall
You will doubt yourself time and time again
But remember
The start of your show is not marked
By the safety exit, blinking green light in the dark
It is the dark
Remember
Nothing worth doing is easy
Remember
So that one day when you look back and remember
You can know that it was all worth it
FIND YOURSELF
So today, we challenge you from between crossroads
We challenge you to lose yourself and find yourself again
And again
We dare you to dive into the sea of colours you’ve never seen
And emerge wholly transformed
We challenge you to compose the map of your own journey
And know that this
Is just the beginning
UBC Slam Poetry is an AMS-affiliated club and a proud community of poets and audience members that gather online every other Friday night. Since 2009, they have welcomed absolutely everyone to share their words, songs, tap-dancin’, rap-dancin, and fun-huggin’ lovely talents.
