Neil Hilborn Features at MacSlams Event
by Birdie Keller ’25
On the night of Saturday, October 26th, a crowd of poetry lovers gathered in the Weyerhaeuser Chapel for a poetry slam hosted by MacSlams and featuring Macalester alumnus Neil Hilborn (’11). It was an evening of laughter, snaps, and Halloween costumes—even including a costume competition!
Poet Ollie Schminkey (’16) hosted the slam, bringing humor and energy to the evening. Their banter back and forth with Neil—often about Neil’s significant fame as a slam poet or Ollie and Neil’s friendship—inspired many laughs from the audience and helped set the tone of the slam as a chill and fun event.
In keeping with traditional MacSlams structure, the night kicked off with an open mic. Poets who had signed up for the open mic bravely performed pieces, not at all deterred by needing to fiddle with the microphone to get it to just the right height. One poet, Beja Puškášová (’26) announced that it was her first ever public poetry reading, received by resounding applause from audience members.
Following the open mic, the competitive portion of the slam began. Judges were selected at random from the audience, and Tanesha Nicole Tyler from Button Poetry performed a fantastic piece about their relationship with their name, as the sacrificial “sac” poet. Sacrificial poets allow judges to calibrate their scoring before the slam begins in earnest. Poets competed in the first round of the slam, followed by a costume contest featuring a variety of delightful homemade costumes (including Buzz and Woody, a dinosaur, a pirate, and more!). Then, before round two of the slam began, Neil Hilborn performed a set.
MacSlams often brings amazing feature poets to Macalester as part of their monthly slams, and there are few poets who could be more suited to return than Neil Hilborn. A Macalester alumnus, Hilborn was one of the founding members of MacSlams, along with Dylan Garity (’12). MacSlams regularly sends a team on to competitions, and in 2011, Neil and Dylan were part of the team placing first at the College National Poetry Slam. In 2013, Neil and Dylan’s poems “OCD” and “Friendzone” respectively went viral on the internet. Since graduating from Macalester, Neil has continued to perform slam poetry, run writing workshops, and has published multiple poetry books, including his most recent collection, About Time.
A powerful performer and delightful stage presence, Neil held the audience’s attention as he drew us through an emotional arc, performing “OCD”, “The Future,” a cover of an Ada Limón poem, and a variety of new poems from About Time: “Inside of Every Turducken is a Turd,” “Rasp,” “Water is Distantly Related to All Other Water” and “(I Am Large, I Contain Multitudes).”
Neil also sprinkled touches of personality and care throughout his set. At one point, after performing “Rasp,” a piece where he reflects on his mother’s decision to not vaccinate him as a child, Neil brought out a vase of flowers and invited audience members to take a flower after the slam, as a reminder that decisions made for us by others can have an impact on our lives, but will eventually wither away. I was incredibly touched by this gesture. He also said that someone should please feel free to take the vase as well; he didn’t want to travel with it! Along with posters and poetry collections available for purchase after the slam were notebooks that Neil had hand-personalized with writing prompts and inspirational statements. He also personalized his banter to Macalester, joking about all the places on campus he cried when he was a student here.
This careful balance of humor and seriousness is a striking aspect of Neil’s performance. When talking to me later about his approach to emotions in performance, Neil said, “You need tonal variation. You need peaks and valleys… If you hit one note for an entire set, [audiences] are just not going to be with you. When I’m building any set, I try to build in an emotional arc.” He added, “That’s the way I’ve always coped with darkness and sadness, is by making jokes about it. If I can laugh about something, then it hurts a little less when I’m done laughing about it.”
Veronica Kruschel (’25) and Adrien Wright (’25), leaders of MacSlams who have performed together on the competitive team that MacSlams has put together in previous years, discussed the planning for this event. Veronica explained how great it was that Neil was able to lead a workshop earlier that day to compliment the slam. The first poem Veronica performed in the competitive slam—about making soup, among other things—was written in the workshop earlier that day! Both Veronica and Adrien emphasized the community that MacSlams and the larger slam community in the Twin Cities has brought them. Veronica said, “The team goes to the Midwest Poetry Mashup… and you realize how many people in Minnesota and the Midwest are really passionate about slam poetry.” Adrien agreed, pointing out, “A lot of people’s first experience with slam poetry was the Button Poetry page, including Neil Hilborn’s ‘OCD,’ and so having these slams and meeting people in the community is a great way to see what’s going on right now in slam.”
The importance of literary community clearly cannot be understated. When asked what advice he has for current Mac students getting involved or trying to stay involved in the slam community here, Neil said, “It sounds simple, and maybe a little stupid, but if you want to be in the community, you’ve got to go to the events. If there’s a Loft show, go to the reading at The Loft. Go to BuckSlam, come to Macalester slams after you’ve graduated […] And that’s part of it, if you just show up and you have a face at an event. Half of the people that I’ve continued to work with are just folks I’ve been around for a while. So that’s part of it. Just get out of your house sometimes and go to readings.” Neil’s latest collection, About Time, is out now. If you were at the slam and want to revisit the pieces he read, or if you want to see what the hype is all about, make sure to order the collection at Button Poetry here.