Communications junior Gabriella Escobar participated in the slam poetry team’s group piece, “How to Build an Alpha Male,” which focuses on toxic masculinity and its effects on society, specifically on the divide between men and women. 

“I think it’s (toxic masculinity) pretty prevalent now in news and social media,” Escobar said. “Obviously, we have Andrew Tate, P. Diddy, (and) we have Epstein, (who) we actually reference in our piece. From all the controversy that’s happening in the world recently, that’s where we got it (our topic) from.”

The piece explains the “steps” to becoming a personified version of toxic masculinity. The first step, written by communications junior Bianca Angelino, is to “start them (boys) young.” Step two was written by Escobar and dictates that someone trying to create an alpha male should not “correct their behavior.” Although each step was created by different people, the team worked together in order to connect everything.

“Originally, we started the piece by having each person make an introduction,” Escobar said. “(From there), we decided whose is the most attention-grabbing. Then, with that introduction piece from the person, we all contributed our own little paragraphs or lines together.”

The piece was written by Escobar, along with Slam Poetry Team members, communications juniors Bianca Angelino and Graeme Melcher, and communications sophomore Trisha Babji Rao. The poem went through multiple drafts before reaching the form in which it was performed. 

“We gave it (our first draft) over to (communications teacher Brittany) Rigdon, and she just threw comments on it, things she wanted us to change, or lines she thinks we should put in,” Escobar said. “With those comments, we just work on them gradually, and she’ll add more, and then we’ll add. Or, if there’s something that comes up, we will end up saying to each other, ‘I don’t know if this fits anymore,’ and then we make sure that everyone agrees.”

Escobar has been a part of the Slam Poetry Team since her sophomore year but explained that she has not co-authored many pieces. The group wrote the poem across multiple Slam Poetry Club meetings after school following the whole team voting on the topic anonymously. As the show date approached, they worked on it during their creative writing classes as well.

“I’ve never really been in a group piece before,” Escobar said. “So being able to work with my group members and craft something we all have a piece in is really cool.” 

Escobar said her goal with the piece was to “make sure people relate to this topic of toxic masculinity” and to “create an alpha male throughout this performance and then leaving ‘him’ with the audience.” 

“4,500 books locked behind the bars of censorship. 4,500 books completely off-limits. 4,500 books that had no right to be banned,” communications sophomore Maya Bourak said while performing her duo slam poem, “Books Behind Bars,” which is about the banning of books, specifically in Florida. 

Bourak describes herself as a “book nerd” and said that her inspiration for becoming a communications major and eventually co-authoring “Books Behind Bars” stemmed from her love of reading.

“I have always loved to read, especially fantasy novels, ever since I was a kid, and I read Nancy Drew and Harry Potter,” Bourak said. “So just hearing about all these books being banned, like ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ and ‘Fahrenheit 451,’ all these books about censorship, I feel like it’s very important to talk about.” 

Bourak came up with the idea for a poem about book banning during her second year on the Slam Poetry Team around August of 2024. 

“I was never really a poet before I came to this school,” Bourak said. “I wrote a lot of prose, and I always thought, ‘I don’t (want to) write about fictional people or myself.’ (But then,) I thought that book banning is something that I really want to talk about, but I didn’t know how. And then I joined Slam (the Slam Poetry Team), and in Slam, people are always getting into political stuff. It’s not just personal.” 

Alongside communications sophomore Trisha Babji Rao, Bourak eventually developed the first full draft in November. 

“I knew what I wanted to write about, but it’s amazing to have another opinion,” Bourak said. “Trisha was able to help me decide how we wanted to open it and the placement of certain things. It starts with what we’re going to talk about (book bans in the state of Florida), and then it goes into personal anecdotes about how reading has shaped both of our lives. For me, it has shaped me a lot.” 

Bourak said that she is “very proud” of the piece and that Figure of Speech has been “a great opportunity to get my voice out there to speak about what I’m passionate about.” This was her first time performing “Books Behind Bars” to an audience, and she expressed that having her family there was something she was anticipating.

“My family doesn’t really see me do poetry,” Bourak said. “A lot of them didn’t even know I did it until a week ago when I told them, ‘I’m performing poetry (at Figure of Speech), want to come see me?’ I think it’s great. They’re going to see me in my element. This is what I do.”

In the first act of Figure of Speech, communications freshman Zahab Ali performed his original oratory speech titled “Checkmate.” Inspired by his and his family’s “competitive nature,” Zahab connects his piece together using chess terminology and personal anecdotes.

“I used a personal story about the death of my grandfather and how I used that in my initial draft of this speech in order to win (in a speech competition),” Ali said. “I think that just shows a lot about how important winning is to us and (how willing you become to) just exploit someone else.”

Ali said that it was “scary” having his family watch him perform this anecdote and finds his family and upbringing to be a large part of his inspiration for this piece.

“I’ve always grown up in a pretty competitive family,” Ali said. “But I feel like they’re always the ones to try to help me do (well) at debate competitions regularly, so I think getting to see this is almost something they’ve been waiting for.”

As a freshman, Ali has only “written a few speeches throughout middle school and high school,” and he said he felt excited that, as a freshman, Figure of Speech was a big opportunity for him, “especially for somebody who’s also been doing debate for only a little bit.” 

“(I did debate in middle school,) but I was never the best,” Zahab said. “I only did original oratory for my last year in middle school, so this is so exciting because I have changed a lot.” 

Although he said he was initially “afraid” of his more experienced counterparts, he took Figure of Speech as an opportunity to get closer to other students, even bringing in snacks for them during their dress rehearsal.

“Getting to know them (the juniors and seniors) today was really fun,” Ali said. “Also, just through practice, I got to know a lot about them through their speeches and just speaking to them during intermission.”

In her first and final performance in Figure of Speech, communications senior Anna Chavez performed a solo slam poem titled “Bambi,” which changes the story of the Disney movie “Bambi” and uses the story as an extended metaphor for toxic masculinity.

“What I changed from the story of (‘Bambi’) is that (instead of being killed by a hunter), Bambi’s mother is killed by a pack of wolves,” Chavez said. “(In my poem), Bambi sees his mother get killed by wolves and then goes through life influenced by the violence of the wolves. He turns into a wolf, and in the end, the cycle begins again (when Bambi kills a mother deer in front of her fawn).”

Chavez drew inspiration from a TikTok about a species of fanged deer called musk deer. The poem represents how “no toxic man is born toxic” and that “it’s the things that they experience in life that make them that way.”

“I used (the inspiration from the TikTok) in an exercise in creative writing,” Chavez said. “So then, I rewatched the Bambi movie, and (…) I was able to find terminology for deer and things about them and wolves and everything related to them.”

Being a senior, Chavez felt as though she had not participated in many communications events and saw Figure of Speech as a way to connect with other students.

“I got a workshop in creative writing, and it really helped,” Chavez said. “I sent it (the piece) to all of my friends in Figure of Speech and had them workshop it, too.” 

Chavez expressed that she is most proud of the extended metaphor throughout the poem and hopes that people will understand the way she talks about toxic masculinity in her last and only Figure of Speech performance.

“I feel really good about it,” Chavez said. “I really liked collaborating with the debate team. I was on the debate team for three years, but I still was only ever doing something for debate, creative writing, or Seeds (the school’s literary and arts magazine). Now, everything is just coming together like one big party.”