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Louder than a Bomb: Marissa Gomez
March 28th, 2012
Omaha, NE – High school students from across the city will be reading and performing their poetry in a series of competitions kicking off April 15th. KVNO News will be profiling a few of those students from different high schools. This is the second segment in our four-part Louder than a Bomb series.
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[audio:https://kvnonews.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/444-Arts-Marissa-LTaB-WEB.mp3]
Marissa Gomez performed before hundreds of students, and came in second place at Omaha South High School's slam contest last year. (Photo by Robyn Wisch)
A handful of students gathered for an after-school Louder than a Bomb workshop at Omaha South High School on a recent spring day. The group met in a third floor classroom with a sign posted above a chalk board that reads: “You never know what you can do until you try.â€
Marissa Gomez is a 16-year-old junior at South. After music practice, she joined the group and moved her desk, adding to a half-circle arranged in the center of the classroom. Gomez said she’s been writing since about the third grade. At first she wanted to be a song writer, she said, but she couldn’t sing. “I’m all for poetry, so I was all for Louder than a Bomb,†she said.
Wearing a black sweatshirt and jeans, Gomez stepped to the front of the group and started her piece, entitled “Who I Am.â€
Listen Now to hear Gomez’s poem in full
[audio:https://kvnonews.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Who-I-am-2.mp3]Writing “starts with an idea, of any sort, sometimes a lot of times it’s about love,” she explained. “Then it develops, who I’m thinking about at that time. If it’s about my dad, then it’s developing more about who he is, how he’s treated me, how we’ve accomplished a lot of things, how we’ve worked together.”
Gomez said she’s gone through a lot in life and writing gives her an outlet to open up. For example, her poem “One, two, three, four” is about her four “biggest heartbreaks.”
Working with a team of students preparing for the competition, Gomez said, has been a strengthening experience. She said her team, which is a mixture of personalities, works together and supports each other.
“We want to be the strongest, have the strongest poems,” she said. “So when we talk about each other’s poems, we let that out.” The team picks apart each poem, she said, dissecting the language and the choices made.
“For me, it’s like I don’t think you putting that there makes it stronger, and so I work it, and I let them know,” she said. “And they say yeah, that’s better, or they say no that needs to change.”
Gomez’s team will have the opportunity to share its stories with the rest of the city at the upcoming Louder than a Bomb competition that begins April 15th, and includes 12 high schools from across Omaha and Lincoln.
“I’m hoping we do good,” she said. “None of us are really all that concerned about points…Yeah we’d like to win, but when it comes to us, we just want to be heard.”
For a full schedule and more information about the event, click here.
More:
Gearing up for Louder than a Bomb
Louder than a Bomb: Duchesne’s Gina Keplinger
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