It was our first ever Cupertino Code Poetry Hack-a-thon and Slam. We had no idea what we would happen. But, in the end, plenty of people showed up, and we slammed six poems at the end of three hours of concentrated fun. I am so pleased and grateful to all who helped and came out for our wild and crazy tech + art event.

Here are my photos of the slam portion of the event. There was video and I’m sure other photos, but for now, you’ll have to imagine us listening to the lecture and demonstration and eating our pizza.

Table 1 included tw0-time Stanford Code Poetry Slam participant Julian Bliss and “two novice coders and amateur poets” (yes, that’s how these kids described themselves). Both students read about the event in the Cupertino Courier and came ready to learn and work. (See more of Julian’s work here and here.)

I am asking my friends what computer languages these poems were written in, so stay tuned for updates.

To our utter delight, Ms. Ghaidaa Mousabacha (language arts teacher from Morrill Middle School in San Jose) brought many of eighth-grade students to our slam. There were three tables of Ms. M’s students. They loved the pizza, but I think they truly enjoyed the poetry and the coding (for which they had no previous experience!) I was very inspired talking to Ms. M. about her love of teaching and her dedication to her students.

Table 2 wrote a code poem about Starbucks. Three brave souls presented it to the audience.

Table 3, also students from Ms. M’s class, worked on their poem with Stanford Code Poetry Slam founder Melissa Kagen and then presented it with another Stanford Code Poetry guest Ben Allen. Their poem was about Batman.

 

We had some technical difficulties projecting Table 4’s poem on the screen, but they did a fine job and had the audience laughing. You can see them working on their piece with Ms. M and Ben.

A local De Anza College student wrote the beginnings of a very interesting poem about Cat’s Cradle (is that a language?) and I overheard her and Melissa talking about how she should keep writing it and submit it to the next Stanford Slam.

Well-known local poet Dennis Noren also joined us for the afternoon. Dennis brought his background in economics, data analysis and poetry together in his piece. My photography skills weren’t always up to the task of getting poet and poem at the same time, but I did get a fun view of Dennis’s poem while he was writing/coding it!

Here are a few more shots of the scene, including a silly selfie of Melissa and me — we had such a good time.

My most heartfelt thanks to Adrian Kolb for bringing the pizza, and to Chris in the blue shirt who served as our great room and tech guy. The City of Cupertino really went the distance this time, supporting us with space and technical assistance. Without them we wouldn’t have had such a successful event.

P.S. Did you know that there are over 9 pages of programming languages on Wikipedia? I was told yesterday that is is just the beginning. I remember my Dad writing in Assembly Language. I tried to learn Pascal in college. The possibilities are endless.