A TCC student shared top honors at the South Campus Poetry Slam April 18 with a local professional poet.

The South Campus English Department and the Sigma Kappa Delta honor society sponsored the event to celebrate National Poetry Month.

“This entertaining event celebrates our students’ creative talents and encourages community involvement,” said Lindsey Davis, English instructor and SKD advisor.

Big Ant, a twice-placed poet in the National Poetry Slam, served as master of ceremonies.

The competition started off with what they called the sacrificial lamb, the person who goes first to test the scrutiny of the judges, to see if this was going to be a hard or easy night. Luckily for the other poets, Big Ant had to draw first blood.

The first round was for TCC students and the second for the local professional poets. The third-round participants consisted of eight of the highest-scoring poets from both combined rounds, leading to rankings for both students and professionals.

The competition was fierce, and so were the judges. Some of the matches came down to tenths of a point.

Demetrius Silman took first place for the student category with poems full of passion and wisdom. Second and third places went to Greg Guttman and Wallace Akins, whose works were greeted with cheers and chants from their fellow students.

Collin Gilbert won the professional category with a tsunami of adjectives, verbs and nouns that cleared a path for poetic spoken word and harmony.

“I’m glad to see so many of you come out and support us because we put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into our craft,” he told the audience.

Second and third places went to Don Juan and Awaiji. The only thing louder than the passion of the poets was the finger-snapping of the audience and judges.

Student Lakendra Jackson enjoyed listening to the poets.

“This is my first time attending the South Campus poetry slam, and I am looking forward to next year’s,” she said.