Courtesy of Sophie Mo

On Saturday evening, around 200 students flooded an auditorium in William L. Harkness Hall for WORD’s annual fall spoken word poetry show. 

WORD Creative Director Adiyah Obolu ’27 told the News that WORD, a resident group through the Afro-American Cultural Center, is a small community of writers who help each other become better artists. Performances at the fall show tackled topics like race, gun violence, sexuality and grief.

For Obolu, the anniversary invited a moment of reflection. 

“We’re Yale’s oldest and hypest spoken word group with such a rich history and culture, and we’ve had so many alumni and amazing poets come through the spaces we’re in,” Obolu said. “For me, it was a time for gratefulness to be a part of this space that has been cultivated for so long.” 

Preparation for the show began nearly a month ago, after an audition process and callbacks that tapped six new WORD members. 

Jean-Claude Pierre ’28, the group’s recent tap, told the News that WORD’s writing and performance feedback workshops helped him refine the poem he had chosen to perform and commit it to memory.

“When I first stepped up on that stage, I was so nervous. I was shaking so much,” Pierre said. “But after all the editing and rehearsing, I’d probably read that poem hundreds of times. When I started performing it, I was in a flow and in the moment. Everything else just faded.” 

Obolu told the News that poetry workshops are designed to maintain a poet’s integrity and preserve their voice. The group prefaces workshops by making it clear that all of the feedback is just suggestions, she added.

Ultimately, Obolu said, the creatives and the diverse range of backgrounds members bring to WORD have helped her develop immensely as an artist. 

Many WORD members also emphasized that performance poetry is an especially important medium at institutions like Yale. Obolu, whose poem tackled gun violence in Black communities, told the News that spoken word poetry is deeply intertwined with social activism. 

“Poetry is about speaking truth to power. At a university like Yale, where our motto is literally light and truth, we have a responsibility to raise our voices against the different injustices we see in society,” Obolu said. “And as much as poetry is an art form, it’s also an academic form. You’re inviting your audience to think critically.”

Pierre underscored the political and social power of the Yale community and noted that WORD was an opportunity for students, especially those in positions of privilege, to understand experiences they did not personally go through. 

Audience member Sophie Mo ’28 agreed. 

“What made the performances so powerful was that, no matter what you believed in, you had to sit there and watch their emotions and face their truths,” Mo said. “You had to see how these issues were impacting people in real-time, and unlike written poetry, you can’t just get up and stop reading. You’re an active witness to the performance of people’s thoughts.” 

Another audience member, Gianna Campillo ’25, told the News that the poets’ invitation to the audience to participate made the experience memorable for her. The show felt “collaborative,” and auditory signifiers — such as the snapping, clapping and murmuring — created a “sense of community. 

Both Campillo and Mo attended the show to support close friends, which they said impacted their experience.

“With the added layer of knowing the performer as a person, I felt like I got to know a different side of him that was very vulnerable and deep,” Mo said. “I almost cried, and it moved me a lot.”

In addition to performances, Obolu told the News that WORD hopes to offer more writing workshops open to the public and continue to raise awareness about the role of spoken word poetry in social activism and campus life. 

WORD will host an open-mic performance in collaboration with Yale Lit next Thursday at 8:30 p.m. in the Silliman Acorn.