Junior Ja’Sir Gillum read a self-written piece 1st hour on Tuesday, March 20, during Pattonville’s Writers Week.

His piece was titled “A Love Letter to the Girl Who Never Learned My Name.”

“It’s about a young me trying to talk to a girl who I was interested in, but she didn’t know who I was,” he said. “I talked about how that made me feel.”

He won over the crowd with a reading that entailed an anecdote about an event in his life. He was inspired to write his poem because of his life experiences.

“As a single guy who has been described as ‘decent in the face at best,’ girls don’t really pay attention to me and I know how it feels to like someone and not only does she not like me, she doesn’t know my name or who I am,” he said. “Everything I wrote about was a true story.”

The first session on Tuesday featured high school students who read and presented their work to the audience. Their performance was streamed live on Facebook and can be seen on replay. To watch Gillum, click on the video above and skip forward to the 9:30 mark.

This was Gillum’s first time performing one of his poems live.

“I wanted to do Writers Week because I wanted to challenge myself by doing something I’ve never done before,” he said. “I was excited about getting up on stage and making everyone laugh.”

Professional writers and student performers can be seen during Writers Week in the Pattonville Auditorium every class period until Friday, March 23. Click here to visit the Writers Week website.