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On the subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan, a dreadlocked teenager stands up and grabs onto a pole in the middle of the car. He recites a poem he's written, and several youths sitting nearby join in: "Daddy, put the pipe down and listen!" Chris Davis, a New Orleans native displaced by Katrina and now at Glen Oaks High School, performs the whole poem--an angry plea to an absent father--with a broad smile on his face as his friends recite with him declarations of frustration and longing.

This apparent contradiction--wounded words delivered with a joyful smile--is at the heart of the youth spoken-word movement. The content of teenagers' poetry is often troubled, conflicted. This is not just clichéd teenage angst, it's a result of the experiences of contemporary youth.

Sixteen-year-old Maureen Kennedy of U-High sits on a fold-out seat at the end of the subway car. To no one in particular, she recites a poem about the SAT. Others soon join in: "When acronyms turn to eponyms, poets get nervous." And everyone speaks a final line in unison: "Stop! Your time is up. Put your pencils down."

The group of six Baton Rouge teens is in New York City to compete with other slam poetry teams from across the country. It's a week of camaraderie and sleepless nights at Brave New Voices, the annual national youth slam festival. Each has been writing poems or song lyrics for some time but performing spoken-word poetry is new to most. Team rehearsals began in earnest only a month before the New York trip. The team took advantage of spring break to gather every afternoon for three hours of revision, rehearsal and critique.

That the Baton Rouge Youth Slam Team is performing poetry anywhere, let alone at a national competition, is due to the determination of WordPlay director Anna West and team coach Chancelier "Xero" Skidmore. Writing programs like WordPlay give teens a safe place to voice their responses to social issues in concrete terms. West and Skidmore are attentive adults who take the kids' words seriously and challenge them to develop their skills in the craft of poetry.

On Wednesday morning, Chris--who also goes by Young Snapper--and I stand in the lobby of Manhattan's International Youth Hostel, where all the teams are housed. Brave New Voices organizers arranged for the Baton Rouge and New Orleans teams to room together. The woman handing out room assignments acknowledges the challenges Louisianans have faced in recent months: "You all have been separated too much already."

"It's heaven," Chris says to me. The Baton Rouge group arrived the previous evening at about 9 p.m. Chris stayed up until 4 a.m. participating in ciphers--a circle of rappers who take turns sharing their work. "Some of the stuff they were saying," he tells me, "it was like…." He shakes his head, unable to adequately express his admiration for his peers' skills.

Passion and determination reigned supreme for Jeremy Johnson during the intense rehearsals for Brave New Voices.

Baton Rouge's first bout is at CB's Gallery, a small annex of '70s punk throne CBGBs. The team members sit in a row at the back. Jeremy Johnson, a Lab School senior, holds his poem on his lap, lips and hands moving as he silently rehearses the lines. His paper is creased and wrinkled, the type crowded by handwritten notes and scratch-outs. Quentin Anderson, a senior from McKinley High, opens the bout with his poem "Traffic," an ironic take on Katrina's effect on Baton Rouge. The audience responds enthusiastically. "How can you judge wisdom?" the emcee asks the audience. Chris' performance is equally powerful. "But where's my mother?" he asks at one point, then pauses and gestures gently out over the audience. "There she is." Several people turn around looking for her, completely caught up in the story he is telling. "Young Snapper tearing it up!" the scorekeeper shouts.

Maureen Kennedy's bout-ending performance on Day one has the entire audience on its feet. Her teammates are dumbfounded. They've heard the poem many times but never seen her perform it like this, stalking about the stage, microphone in hand, dropping to the floor, motioning to the balcony. The scorekeeper stands, the pieces of paper containing each judge's number in his hand. "The low score is a 9.9," he says, and dramatically throws that paper to the floor. He then shouts the rest while the crowd cheers along: "10! 10! 10! 10!"

By the end of the two days of preliminary bouts, each of the Baton Rouge poets has had a moment onstage--at Nuyorican Café, at NYU, at the Apollo Theatre before rapper and actor Mos Def.

ReShanna Hill, a graduate of Lee High, is so nervous before her turn she asks someone to check her head for fever. Manita Smith, the youngest member of the team and a freshman at Istrouma High School, performs a poetic tribute to her aunt, reading expressively from a sheet of paper held tightly in both hands.

Molly and Quentin close one bout with their group poem, "Otherwise." The two youths--one male, one female; one black, one white--reflect on the contrasts and commonalities in their lives:

Happily ever after is a lie

Unless the princess in question is blonde and blue-eyed

I've never known otherwise.

Fantasy tales are ill truths

and clichés write my life story

I've never known otherwise.

The piece reflects perfectly the spirit that runs through the teen writing movement, and it brings the house down in New York City. Through their intensive collaboration, friendship and competition, these six young writers have become brave new voices in Baton Rouge.