When I walked into that computer room at 7:00 last Thursday evening, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. It’s a small room, an unassuming room, lined by low tables and old PCs without enough office chairs to go around.

“You looking for the writing circle?” he asked me, he had lightish skin and was wearing a hat but I can’t remember what color it was and I can’t remember his name.

I confirmed this and they invited me to sit. It was a mismatched, hodgepodge, eclectic group of people; a boy, around my age, wearing a striped black-and-fluorescent-blue jacket and matching, lenseless sunglasses; a woman, older, with silver-touched hair and dark eyes rimmed in darker frames; a boy with sandy hair who shouted whatever he felt like; a high school girl with thick, short, chocolate-colored hair who sat in the circle but a little bit removed. The mood was lighthearted and immediately welcoming, and they accepted me into their circle as if they had been expecting me all along. Talk focused on the Dalai Lama’s recent drama and his upcoming visit, if he had done the right thing and what it would mean for both his supporters and his opponents. By 7:15, the room had become crowded beyond capacity, and the newcomers had to find seats on the floor.

“Lets go around and introduce ourselves,” suggested the boy in the lenseless glasses and, pointing directly at me, added, “Starting with you.”

“Hi, I’m Laura,” I began, because it was the obvious way to start, and I was greeted with echoes of, “Hi, Laura,” not serious but joking, almost mocking themselves for the officialness of it all. I continued to explain my purpose there, not to participate but to observe, to compile notes and write a report on what they were doing. They met this with enthusiasm, and the guy in the green hat invited me to participate in the writing, and I smiled shyly and muttered something noncommittal, and then the next person began introducing herself.

With all the distractions and jokes it took a long time to make it all the way around the room, but by the time we did, the group was ready to start. The guy who had first asked me if I was looking for the writing circle began to speak, reading off a prompt. There was some brief discussion and joking, and then the room gradually quieted as, one by one, the writers took up their pens and began to work.

I didn’t expect to write. I didn’t expect to have anything to say, but I did, and after I wrote down the prompt and stared at it for a while I began to write, and the words stopped coming from my brain but simply poured from my pencil as if they had been stored there all along. I watched as I scribbled words across pages and pages of the notebook that I had expected to record names and dates and facts in, and the words of other people, but not my own; and before I knew it the man in the hat was telling everyone to take a few minutes to finish up and I had hundreds of words about how I let you down.

I didn’t expect to read. We went around the circle, one at a time, and each person read the words they had written, while the rest of us listened. Lines that were profound or funny or just hit you just right were responded to by shouts and cries and foot-stomping and murmurs of “that’s dope. That is dope.” And when it came to be my turn, there was no way I couldn’t read, so I did, and I rushed through my words until I finished, and then I waited for the awkward silence that was sure to follow but I looked up and no one suggested I leave and no one laughed at me for thinking I could write a poem, and I couldn’t tell what they were saying but I heard them clapping and praising and I heard echoes of “that’s dope. That is dope.”

We did another prompt, and once again the room got silent as everyone began to work, and I learned even more about these strangers who weren’t really even strangers anymore. After everyone had read talk turned to the slam the next night, and the upcoming finals, and by 9:00 the room was empty.

There were three rounds to the slam; each poet was scored on a scale that seemed to begin around 7 and ended at 10. Those with qualifying scores moved onto the next round, until only three remained, and they would be competing in the local finals for the chance to go to the nationals in D.C.

The mood was supportive as the first poet took the stage, the so-called “sacrificial poet.” After her came fifteen more, each bringing something new to the performance. When a poet couldn’t come up with the words that they had written, or couldn’t speak for the tears, the audience began as one to rub its hands together to make that soothing shh-sh-shh-sh sound of an elementary school rainstorm; when a poet’s words were particularly profound or funny or touching, the audience stomped its feet and shouted. The performance lasted for three hours, and, to be honest, in between each poet I wished for the minutes to go faster, but as soon as the next one began to speak I forgot all about time. They spoke of issues I could never imagine and ones that I know all too well; they moved the audience at times to their feet and at other times to tears. As more and more were eliminated and I began to see familiar faces returning to the stage, I was stunned at how well I felt I knew these people whom I had never met.

I get why it’s called a slam because that’s exactly what it does: it slams into your body and leaves you breathless, still trying to understand what hit you long after it’s gone. I don’t know how they seem to innately be able to build words on top of each other to elicit that just-right emotion from the audience, to hurt you with their pain and transform images into a nearly tangible reality. I didn’t even know that people could do that with words, rearranging the same ones we use every day to form combinations that can make you cry or laugh or shout. But I do know that next Thursday at seven I’ll be back in that small, unassuming computer room on the ground floor of Miller Community Center, because sometimes you have to stop writing about things that other people do and start doing them yourself.