It has been a few years since Emerald Woodland had to write her first ballad as part of a school assignment.
It was simple enough: Write a ballad on your life, her teacher asked, no matter how explicit. After free-writing what felt like a diary entry, she turned in a total of four pages, unsure of what to expect.
Little did Woodland know that the event would eventually lead her to venture into poetry lounges and to the 22nd Annual Martin Luther King Oratorical Contest.
“It was just something that I happened to be good at,” she said, recalling how her teacher encouraged her to venture into writing and performing, something that, at 12 years old, she had not put much thought into.
Now in her sophomore year at UCLA, Woodland will be showcasing her talents at the Oratorical Contest Thursday evening in De Neve auditorium.
The contest, organized by Alpha Phi Alpha and the Office of Residential Life, will feature a new Spoken Word segment of which Woodland will be the first performer. Though contestants have had the option to do a Spoken Word piece, this is the first year featuring a specific segment dedicated to it, said Marques Watson, a second-year political science student and brother of Alpha Phi Alpha.
Unlike traditional speeches, which tend to have an uplifting and inspiring message, Woodland said Spoken Word pieces contain an element of the unexpected.
“It can start anywhere and end anywhere,” she said. “It gives you a lot of room to express yourself and your message.”
The night’s theme, “Promised Land or Wilderness,” allows contestants to reflect on the progress society has made, said Jermaine Ratliff, the resident director of De Neve and a member of the Intercultural Programming Committee, which oversees the programming of the event.
Ratliff said the event is an inspiring one that brings out the neighboring community, as it will also feature some high school student speakers.
The broad theme allows speakers to touch on a variety of issues, ranging from social justice to race and gender, Watson said. He added that, as a whole, contestants will speak about “where we are as a society.”
While contestants will be scored by a panel of judges, Watson said he hopes viewers do not view the night solely as a contest. Rather, he said people should view it as a group of students expressing how they feel about the world and what may be some resolutions to its conflicts.
“It should make you think more about whether we’ve reached the Promised Land or not,” he said.
For Woodland, there is still some work which needs to be done in order to continue living out the legacy that King left.
She said that while her piece is slightly political, she hopes the audience can appreciate it as an intellectual piece reflecting not on the failings of a community, but on the hard work that needs to be continued to get to the “Promised Land” that King fought for.
“I feel like we need to take a moment to reflect on what he lived for, what he died for and continue that struggle for a just society,” she said.
“It’s an ongoing battle,” she said, later adding, “It’s going to take a village to get to that Promised Land.”