“I turn off my television and say I love reality TV, but in actuality this is a tragedy that tears down our community and nation while we are molding a new generation,” English teacher Terrence Foushee said in one of his spoken word poems.
Foushee first became interested in poetry in high school. He enjoys being able to control what the audience perceives when he performs.
“Even though I’m talking to a lot of people I feel like I have the control over what they know,” Foushee said. “Even though sometimes I end up giving more of myself than I would in a normal conversation, I feel like it’s my choice, and I get to say it the way I want without anybody interrupting me to ask me a question like, ‘Why do you feel that way?’ I get to say whatever I want to say… in a judge-free space.”
Over the summer, Foushee performed a spoken word poem at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s Remembrance Ceremony. The ceremony was held in a segregated cemetery.
“I had the opportunity to perform a piece that I wrote that was really speaking to the idea that we should not forget the history of Chapel Hill,” Foushee said. “Chapel Hill is seen as a very progressive town but underneath there are still some issues of racism that we try to hide, because we want people to see [it] as this beautiful place with no blemishes. But there are blemishes, and that doesn’t mean that Chapel Hill is not wonderful, but we to need take in all of what makes Chapel Hill what it is. Once we can do that, I feel like Chapel Hill can be even better.”
Foushee performed his first spoken word poem as a senior at Chapel Hill High School. He received an amazing response from the audience, which led him to continue to perform.
“We had a Black History Month program during my senior year, and a friend of mine who was a poet asked me to be in [it],” Foushee said. “I was originally going to act out a slave narrative… [but] then I decided to act out my own piece and talk about my experience. So I did that, and I performed it in front of pretty much the entire school and got an incredible response. [My teacher] was crying, and I was like, ‘Well maybe I’m good at this!’ So then I joined the poetry club ,and from that moment on, I thought that was the easiest way for me to be able to share things and talk about situations that I think are unique to me.”
Foushee and English teacher Christine Mayfield are the teacher advisors of the poetry club at Northwood. Sophomore Trevor Kikuyu is a member and believes that Foushee encourages students to express themselves freely.
“He doesn’t judge, at all—whatever I say, I can just feel free to say it, but he makes sure whatever I say has to be real, has to be true,” Kikuyu said.
Foushee has always enjoyed the environment of the many poetry clubs he has joined.
“The community that [poetry club] creates [has] people from all different walks of life,” Foushee said. “[In poetry club], you have the most popular to the least popular, extremely confident [people] to people who have low confidence. Within that space, all of these people recognize that everybody’s stories are just as important as the others. I think it creates some long-lasting friendships, and I also think it teaches people how to treat one another.”
– By Riley Koch
