Mayhem Poetry Monday

Welcome to Mayhem Poetry Week! Each day leading up to our Thursday assemblies, we'll learn a little bit about the Mayhem Poets and share a Performance Poem of the Day.  The idea for the Mayhem Poets originated at Rutgers University in 2000, when two student poets hosted open-microphone gatherings called Verbal Mayhem. These campus events grew into a traveling show-- and into a mission to expose people of all ages and from all walks of life to the excitement of performance poetry.  The Mayhem Poets blend theater, comedy, and hip-hop. They challenge audiences to look at poetry and the world around them in new and surprising ways.  

Our performance poem of the day, If We Walked on Our Hands by Beatrice Schenk de Regniers, reimagines the way we look at the world around us:

If we walked on our hands

   instead of our feet

And we all ate paper

   instead of meat

What a mixed-up place 

this world would be

What a mixed-up

              fixed-up

              topsy-turvy

              sit-u-a-tion.

If we wore our hats

   on our behinds

And all we ate

   were melon rinds

What a mixed-up place 

this world would be

What a mixed-up

              fixed-up

              topsy-turvy

              sit-u-a-tion.

If babies worked

   while papas played

If children gave orders

   and parents obeyed

What a mixed-up place 

this world would be

What a mixed-up

              fixed-up

              topsy-turvy

              sit-u-a-tion. 

With a little practice, two voices or groups of voices reciting this poem will create a mixed-up, fixed-up, topsy-turvy Mayhem Monday performance!