Skyline College Library celebrated Black History Month with a bang! In effort to uplift Black culture, we shared wall displays of various Green Book, book covers throughout the library, featured Black Resistance and all about love physical book collections, as well as host the first ever “Mic DROP! Poetry SLAM!!!” event.
“Mic DROP! Poetry SLAM!!!” was a community lead hybrid event, made possible by the Library Outreach PIF grant, which featured two of our very own Skyline College students Aaron Perez and Jean Paul Dualan and faculty member Arnette Villela-Smith.
Intermixed with powerful video performances of spoken word artists from around the world, Aaron performed a thought-provoking spoken word poem titled “Fear” that questions God about man’s shortcomings and inspired by Kendrick Lamar’s song titled “FEAR.” Professor Villela-Smith, instructor for Ethnic Studies, shared a recording of her poem “What kind of knowledge is valid.” Also, one of our community members shared a video of her three-year-old son rapping. Our attendees and performers enjoyed themselves and wanted more.
The library would like to thank Pacific Dining for providing food and drink inspired by Black culture — including the Zobo tea; the Bookstore for their donation of the coffee and tea beverage station; and ASSC, BSU, and MCPR for their help in promoting the poetry slam event. All these collaborative efforts helped make the poetry slam a huge success.
Article by: Megdi Abebe
