WBEZ 91.5 Chicago

Every year, the Louder Than a Bomb poetry competition gathers some of the best young poets from around the city.Eight Forty-Eight heard Melana Bass' entry from the 2011 competition.

In 2011, WBEZ filmed four short videos featuring Louder Than a Bomb youth poets performing their work on location. At the Taste Entertainment Center on Chicago’s South Side, rows of flashing lights wink on the dance floor and a cluster of shimmering disco balls twinkle above the heads of club-goers. 

In 2011, WBEZ filmed four short videos featuring Louder Than a Bomb youth poets performing their work on location. Raven Hogue says she and her younger brother have dealt with their parents’ divorce in very different ways. Both took to the pen, but whereas Hogue writes poetry, her brother writes graffiti.

In 2011, WBEZ filmed four short videos featuring Louder Than a Bomb youth poets performing their work on location. When poet Malcolm X. London spits that “the educated aren’t necessarily the educated,” he’s referring to the inequalities of the public school system. 

In 2011, WBEZ filmed four short videos featuring Louder Than a Bomb youth poets performing their work on location. The series starts with 16-year-old Aliyah Oyemade, whose poem When a City Loves honors recently “deceased” public housing complex Cabrini Green. 

The Louder Than a Bomb teen poetry festival wrapped up its annual competition last week, and gems from the event are already making their way onto our airwaves.

On Saturday, March 12, four teams competed in the final round of the Louder Than a Bomb, the annual youth poetry festival at the Vic Theatre in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood.