Spoken word was showcased outside of 1873 Thursday night as part of the 'One Billion Rising' movement.

The poetry slam was put on by the university chapter of the V-Day Campaign and theCrew.



The V-Day campaign is a national movement focused on bringing awareness to the community about domestic violence against women, sophomore theatre major Trevor Frets said. 



This is the 15th year the V-Day campaign has hosted events based around Valentine's Day, Frets said.



The 'One Billion Rising' movement is the theme for this year because there are one billion women and men around the world who are doing different events for the V-Day campaign, Frets said.



"It's an estimated one billion, so that's one-forth of the world's population that is saying 'This is enough,'" he said. "Women need to be treated fairly and men need to know that too."

Michael Guinn, founder of Fort Worth National Poetry, was the host of the poetry slam for the fifth year in a row. 



The poetry slam is a teaser to "The Vagina Monologues" that will be performed this weekend, Guinn said. 

He said he wanted to do "something to kind of open the audience eyes here at TCU to something as eye opening as 'The Vagina Monologues,' and hopefully promote domestic awareness on campus."



First-year business major Katelin Bowman said she heard about the poetry slam and wanted to see what the V-Day campaign was about.



"I wanted to hear the different kind of poetry people come up with on the spot and see what motivates them," she said. 



The poetry slam was hosted on Valentine's Day because it is one of the V-day campaigns biggest events besides "The Vagina Monologues," said Christy Wilson, public representative and marketing co-director for the V-Day campaign.



"It's something people really get hyped up about and come out for so it makes sense to put it on the actual day," she said. 



V-Week is based around Valentine's Day to represent the vagina and women's rights issues, Frets said. 

The V-Day campaign will be showing "The Vagina Monologues" on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. and on Sunday at 2:30 p.m., according to the Facebook event page.