Natalie Johnson
Humor Columnist
Sophomore Trinity Madison won the 2017 All Write Franzie Award for her poem “I Pledge.”
For Madison, the writing process is a “one-day experience.” To gain inspiration for her pieces while writing, she listens to spoken word poetry by poets like FreeQuency, whom Madison described as a “really brilliant,” thought provoking, feminist writer. Madison’s writing is influenced by FreeQuency’s use of statistics and factual evidence in her poetry to make a statement.
It was with inspiration from these poets that make their audience “question,” as Madison said, that she wrote “I Pledge.”
After being sexually assaulted last year, Madison used poetry as an outlet to express and process her experience, which she described as a time of “a lot of pain.”
“Every 107 seconds someone gets raped,” Madison said. Madison’s plan is to open rape clinics, providing survivors with therapy, access to lawyers and guidance throughout the process to make it easier for the victims to handle their cases. Madison described these clinics as a “one stop shop to help and have everything.”
Since focusing more on poetry, Madison has set the goal of attending “Brave New Voices,” a national poetry slam competition. Madison also hopes to participate in college poetry slam competition, then continuing writing as a hobby.
After college, Madison wants to use her knowledge of dealing with sexual assault to help others going through similar situations.
As demonstrated in “I Pledge,” Madison believes society can change for the better if people are able to overcome prejudice and give one another a chance. In overcoming our differences, Madison thinks even the community in Webster Groves High School can change for the better.
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