South has started a social-justice focused Spoken Word group. Coordinated by English teachers Corinth Matera, Sara Swanson and Delania Haug, the group aims to raise awareness and advocate for a number of social justice issues through Spoken Word poetry. Spoken Word is a performance and word play based style of poetry, used to create an atmosphere and story for an audience.

The group takes a focus on current social justice issues faced today. The group plans on performing their social justice based pieces at various events, open-mics, and tournaments, including TruArt Speaks, across the the Twin Cities.

To aid the aspiring performers, teachers, coaches, poets, and writers will be brought in to do writing clinics with the South’s artists. The coordinators plan on bringing several coaches from many different backgrounds throughout the year.

The first writing coach will be local writer and MCTC professor Shannon Gibney. Gibney recently finished her latest novel about a transracial adoptee. Gibney has been very active in addressing and discussing racial issues. Gibney will be visiting the Spoken Word group December 7th to read from her novel and lead the students through a writing session focused on race and identity.

The group hopes to collaborate and combine all their pieces to revive the former South High literary magazine. The magazine was discontinued more than 15 years ago, but it seems it may be making a comeback in the Spring of 2016.