This month, The Quill has selected senior Caroline Knight as the Mawrtian of the Month! This feature is attributable to her very memorable Convocation speech highlighting her experiences surrounding race, sexuality, and mental health. Read this Q&A below to see what she has to say about her experience with slam poetry, how the BMS community has shaped her as a writer, and how she chose her Convocation topic:

Q: How did you first get into slam poetry?

A: I think I first got into slam poetry in the ninth grade when in Ms. Jansen’s English class we watched this poem by Elizabeth Acevedo, called Hair, and I just immediately fell in love with it

 Q: Have there been any faculty members here at Bryn Mawr that have impacted you and your decision to focus on writing in college?

A: I think the two teachers that have really impacted me are Ms. Park and Ms. Eisler. Particularly Ms. Park because once I started sharing my poetry with her, she didn’t just accept it and say it was good. She wanted to meet with me and discuss it because I also was looking for someone who would critique my poetry. Ms. Eisler also does that …so it was just nice to have them as people I could reach out to for that.

 Q: How has being in Arts Council impacted your writing?

A: Arts council has impacted my writing… I guess not really the writing aspect, but confidence, especially by using Coffee House as a place to share my poetry, because the first time I shared slam was Ninth Grade Coffee House and I guess having the Bryn Mawr community cheering me on and admiring my work, it made me feel as if my words mattered and that I did have a message that was implemented in my work and it wasn’t something that just I was feeling, other people felt it too.

 Q: How did you pick the identifiers that you wrote about in your convocation?

A: I wanted to pick 3 that were somewhat ‘visible,’ or that I guess could be shown visually. I chose the Blackness aspect because that's something that I’ve talked about in my poetry. My sexuality, I mixed that in because I wanted to talk about something different because at first I was thinking if I talked about Blackness I wouldn't really be able to say much about who I am. That’s a piece of me, but it’s not all of it. It also felt very reaffirming because many people told me in the past that “you’re confused” or “you don’t know that because you have not come of age,” it was just reaffirming for me to say it myself without anyone else prompting me to say that I am bisexual. And then the depression aspect was another reaffirming conception in a sense that depression is not easy, and something that I’ve grappled with for I’d say about four years now. It is very difficult to maintain at times but a cheesy phrase to use is, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” I’ve dealt with it. I’ve moved through life having depression and it’s something that I think is part of my overall entity because I realize that it's something that’s been a part of me for so long and I wouldn’t necessarily let it go despite how much it hurts me sometimes.