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Local Fundraiser for Lanark County Poets Society

Article by Tammy MacKenzie

The Lanark County Live Poets Society, or LiPS, is sending a team of local spoken word performance poets to the five day long Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, where they will compete against nineteen other teams from across Canada. To help raise funds to send the team to Toronto this October, LiPS is hosting an event in Perth on Saturday October 8th.

Several team members will be at the Farmers Market as the day’s charity group, from 8 am to 1:30 pm, with basket draw and silent auction items, and collecting donations. Tickets for the basket draws may be purchased and allocated to any basket(s) you wish, as many times as you wish. Bidding for silent auction items is done by writing down your bid, keeping in mind later bids can top yours so you have to check back in.

Everything will be moved over to the Factory Grind at 1 Sherbrooke St. after the Market, where an open-stage style evening of entertainment will be held, welcoming poets, musicians and storytellers to participate, and everyone to enjoy features by a number of guest performers.

The silent auction will conclude at the end of the evening, and basket items drawn as well, so some people will be going home with treasures and goodies.
Matt Dickson, a local musician with the acoustic duet band Rockin’ Horse, lead singer for The Respectables, and drummer for both Beatlejuice and the Commuters, will be the evening’s MC as well as performing, and two guests from Ottawa will also feature: spoken word artist Rusty Priske, the Capital Poetry Collective’s Slam Master and repeat member of their Capital Slam national team, and storyteller “aka professional liar” Ruthanne Edwards, founder and Slam Master of Once Upon A Slam and member of the Kymeras storyteller troupe.

The members of the Lanark County Slam team, Poettiquette, Inez Dekker, Andy Kerr-Wilson and b!WILDer, will also be performing spoken word poetry. For those who have not yet experienced spoken word and slam poetry, you will be in for a pleasant surprise with this performance art, which has been rapidly gaining in popularity around the world. It is not likely to resemble what you may be thinking of as “poetry reading”.

Doors open at 6:30 and the stage opens at 7.

Admission is $5 and includes a free basket draw ticket.
For more information please e-mail lanarklips@hotmail.com or look for LiPS on Facebook.

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CFSW 2010: Steve Sauvé Memorial Nerd Showcase

Article by Kathryn Hunt

Fair disclosure: I’m a poet, and I’m a self-proclaimed geek. And even I can appreciate that maybe people don’t necessarily associate the two. Especially not geeks and slam poetry. I mean, the steoetypical geek, if he writes poetry, writes angst-ridden love poems to the barbarian princesses of distant planets, or to Deanna Troi, and then never shows them to anyone, right? Slam? That thing where people get up on stage and strike fire into their audiences with their verbal mastery, captivating performances and emotional intensity? Aren’t nerds supposed to be shy, awkward, retiring folk, only truly comfortable with their computers and 20-sided dice?

So what are they doing getting up on the mike and pulling roars and cheers and sighs from their audience? They’re celebrating.

The – to use its official title – Steve Sauve Memorial Nerd Showcase, part of the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, seemed to me to be just that: a celebration. Featuring Nadine Thornhill and Bart Cormier, who put together a beautifully shaped – “adorkable” – joint performance that even included a little soft shoe (at the urging of the audience), the show was hilarious and smart. Rather like nerds themselves.

What constitutes geek poetry? It turns out that it’s not just that geek poetry is about math or science fiction or Batman. Sure, the geek references flew like laser fire at the Battle of Yavin: it helps to know why it would hurt to step on a Warhammer 40K figure, what “Sayyadina” means, and why it’s funny to say “I’m your differential / touching all your curves.” But there’s also, built into it, a shared experience of having at some point in your life felt like an outsider, like you just didn’t fit into society, and of having found other likeminded people along the way, because face it, there was a room full of other likeminded people there. All nerds and geeks have felt like that at some point – but then, hasn’t everyone?

So the poetry that came out at the showcase was also universal: funny, bawdy, touching, moving, encouraging. At first glance you wouldn’t think Nadine Thornhill’s poem “Loser,” which she premiered at this event, had a particularly geek-centric theme, but the basic idea of it – having been convinced at some point that if you didn’t excel at something by society’s standards, you shouldn’t try, and learning that in fact you had every right to play even if you were bad at the game – speaks to anyone who was picked last for gym class sports.

Sure, there were blaster-rifle and jumpsuit-laden odes to classic SF, there were slightly obsessive and terribly funny love letters to Natalie Portman, there were Monty Python references, there was a poem combining Kraftwerk and Ricardo Montalban, there were allusions to Warcraft, hit points, Doctor Who and Dune, and there were self-deprecating appearances of inhalers and retainers and acne and all the other nerd stereotypes; but these were also poems about unrequited love and about loving (or lusting after) someone’s mind more than their body, they were about finding community, and about dreaming big. There were superheroes aplenty. And yeah, there was also an opening ‘sing-along’ performance of Steve Sauve’s signature ‘Clarion Call (The Geek Poem.)’

Bart Cormier might have gotten the loudest shouts of the night with his poem that announced, bluntly, that geeks, nerds, poets, artists, and all their ilk are not cool. Absolutely not cool. Because ‘cool’ doesn’t care. ‘Cool’ has seen it all, done it all, and thought it was lame before anyone else even discovered it.

By those lights, the enthusiasms, the passions, the obsessions, the loves, the joys, and the creativity of poets (and geeks, and nerds, and artists, and sculptors and dancers and all the others) are decidedly uncool. “I am not cool,” he thundered. “You are not cool!”

And the whole room joined in to yell, “WE ARE NOT COOL!”

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CFSW 2010: Semifinal bout #2

As one of the first public school buildings that Ottawa ever opened, the Ottawa Technical High School is home to one of the classiest auditoriums standing in the city.  As the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word blazes towards its conclusion, the venues seem to get more and more grand.  Tonight, the architecture of the stage itself finally began to match the grandeur of the work presented on the stage.  Tonight, the now-closed Ottawa Technical High School re-opened for a one-night master class in poetry.

The teams for semifinal bout 2: Burlington, Edmonton, Urban Legends, and Wild Card.

The losers: nobody.

Round 1

Wild Card lived up to their name by presenting a team piece.  When does a team that’s been in existence for three days find time to build a team piece?  Turns out that the piece was mostly led by team member Brad Morden, but nobody much minded: they presented a rallying cry for optimism and creativity, thrumming “I am stronger today. Not as strong as tomorrow.”  Edmonton’s Mary Pinkoski invoked the smoldering bones of the creators of the first fire, reminding everyone since of the legacy of that creation.  Urban Legends’ Marcus Jameel laid down a passionate plea for victims.  The top-scoring poet (and my favorite) of the round was Burlington’s Truth Is… She opened her piece with “they say not every suicide note looks like a letter”, stunning described every piece of a body in crisis as part of a message, and brought the crowd to it feet on er last line: “we should learn to read the signs”.  The lowest score any judge gave for the round was a 7.9; two pieces got two tens each.  Could it get any better?  Hell yes.

Round 2

First up this round was Edmonton’s Ahmed Ali, who presented one of the most searing poems I’ve heard at the festival.  Punning mercilessly (“control sea – do you copy that?”), he shared the unheard perspective on Somalian pirates — fishermen driven to desperation — with exquisite wit (“I know human beings who wish they’d never wake up because they’re tired of mourning”).  He was followed by Wild Card’s Faye Estrella, whose homage to Steve Sauve (“my baby didn’t believe in crying” … “I’m giving this evening up to a sun of poetry”) rose to a pitch that moved the auditorium walls several feet back.  Burlington presented a team piece dedicated to their optimism and need to the future, and Urban Legends’ Hodan Ibrahim scorched the crowd with a call to action whose last line — “Jefferson, Kennedy, Lincoln: we are sorry for not having stood up earlier” — pulled gasps from the packed house.

And yet: it got better.

Round 3

Burlington’s Tomy Bewick got the third round off to a solid start with a poem about colors and lines… and messing with both.  He was followed by Urban Legends’ Hyfidelik, whose mesmerizing magic over the number 108 wove numbers into letters into words into imagery into numbers again.  This poem is almost indescribable and must truly be seen to be appreciated; the house leapt to its feet as he closed with “no wonder zero is in eight [innate]” and the judges rewarded his brilliance generously: three out five of them gave him a perfect 10.  You’d think it couldn’t be topped, but the Edmonton team followed Hyfidelik with a slickly murderous stab of a team piece that started as a praise to a poet (“I fell in love at a poetry slam”) and finished with an utter evisceration when the object of the piece became the subject of “somebody’s heartbreak poem”.  Wild Card’s Sean finished the round with an image-rich attempt to untie the nautical knots of lost relationship memory.  At the close of the round, it was clear that the crowd and judges were utterly enthralled: the lowest score received by anyone in round 3 was a 9.3!

Round 4

The bout closed with a powerhouse round of vivifying versification.  Urban Legends was represented by Synonymous, who tied themes of science, genetics and stem cell progress to the non-evolution and non-revolution of the global immigrant population.  This was followed by an epic team piece from team Burlington, where Tomy Bewick and Made Wade brilliantly and hilariously lampooned the stereotypically single, horny male.  Wild Card’s Steve Miller offered a tender and charming ode to acceptance (“I come from Atlantis, cowboy — people don’t understand our love”), but suffered a penalty for going overtime (as an aside: that timekeeper is a rat bastard who ruins it for everyone).  And Edmonton’s Titilope Sonuga brought the whole bout to a gobsmacking conclusion with an assertive and sly demand for respect — probably the finest wordplay of the night — for which she was rewarded with a 9.8 as her lowest score.

Looking back on my own description of the bout, I can’t help but feel as though I’m hyperbolizing… but the elation that has stayed with me in the hours since I left the venue assures me that my perception of this evening’s poetry is correct.  What it means, dear reader, is that Saturday night’s final bout is unmissable.  Earlier in the evening, Montreal and Ottawa Capital Slam won the right to compete in the Saturday endgame.  The final scores for this bout were:

Wild Card — 112.3
Edmonton — 115.7
Burlington — 116.1
Urban Legends — 119.3

… which means that the final bout will take place between Montreal, Ottawa Capital Slam, Burlington, and Urban Legends.

Bring it on.

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CFSW 2010: Bout #5

There are two moments of silence I adore when watching slam poetry.

The first is when a poet first takes to the stage. The clock starts as soon as the poet engages with the audience, so there is almost always a moment of silent reflection in front of the microphone before the artist connects with the crowd. Some gaze softly at the floor. Some stand with hands cupped as if in prayer. Some seem to thrust psychic roots down through the stage and into the Earth below. In that moment, the audience collectively stops breathing. It is religious. At the moment the poet engages, we inspire together, and the sound is a wash.

The second moment is when a poet runs dry. It can happen any time, coming out of any piece, at any pace. Suddenly the sound stops. In the most exquisite of these events, the poem flashes out of existence and the poet is discovered, in pure light, shining underneath. Waves of support flood on to the stage from the crowd, and inevitably – after a moment – those waves come crashing back as the poet is once again possessed by the poem.

There were many of both of these moments in bout five. All of them were gorgeous. Teams from Guelph, Halifax, Peterborough, and Vancouver faced off at the 9PM session at Ottawa Little Theatre, in a slickly-run slam captained by Greg ‘Ritallin’ Frankson.

To my eye, the Guelph team appeared to be the youngest of the bunch, but they represented wisely. Beth Fischer stalked on to the stage, grounded like an oak; between inhales and exhales she railed against the concrete insanity and longed for her escape to nature. Two rounds later, Matthew Dryden shared an ode to the poet he met last night — likely Beth, since he referred to her poem’s “fried chicken impulses” — and proved that their teeth throw sparks when they kiss. With the gleam of someone who hasn’t yet been steamrolled by the working world, Amanda worked her way through the game of getting a job in the office machinery, and decided to rail against the pressure to conform: “you don’t have to be a title to make a difference”. Pinch-hitter David James Hudson finished the team’s offerings with a manifesto against ‘living in the new normal’.

Halifax presented the only team piece of the night, with their first poem: an eviscerating deconstruction of Canada’s national anthem that raised the crowd to a howl with its last line: “when the anthem plays, what exactly are you standing for?” Zeviathan offered biting commentary on societal priorities, railing against his neighbours: “I’d rather water my children than the lawn,” he declared, and “in my home, my child can free-range for Cheerios for weeks!” JPhat channeled pure rhythm in a eulogy for progress; a pattern Winona Linn followed for an angry piece about a disabled man who is vilified because people think he’s always intoxicated.

For my money, the Passion Prize for the evening goes to the Peterborough team, for the range of their work and the risks they took in presenting it. Kate MacNeil compared her love for a boy to the love her mom showed her dad; Gillian Turnham exploded into movement with a piece about motion. “My best friend grew up in New York and man that guy knows how to walk,” she celebrated, even managing to call for respect for our friend the hypotenuse. Jess Waite and Chris Last both took on issues of love; Jess externalized its effects and wondered “how you and I become crystal,” while Chris focused on the power of a little heart.

In terms of overall skill and presentation, I gave my biggest nod of support to the Vancouver team. RC Weslowski was probably the oldest poet of the night – and he looks a bit like the English teacher I always wished I had – but as soon as he opens his mouth and raises his head, he becomes a gleaming pre-teen: “a poem might remind us that the world is out to embrace us.” Sasha Langford started her piece with eyes downcast, and then traced the life of a fame object from its birth to its inevitable fall, letting herself get possessed by a tirade of plastic pop icon imagery. Lucia Misch, clad in cowboy boots, reminisced about the time she spent with horses in her youth. With an addictive turn of phrase she lamented the constant replacement of one focus with another, and seemed to yearn for a rediscovery of her younger passions. And my favorite poem of the night, stealthily wrapped in powerhouse rhetoric, came from Johnny MacRae. In a flawless stream of logical connections he deconstructed the idiom “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle”, proving that fish need bicycles desperately and, further, that fish need us to need bicycles so our garbage will stop killing fish. It came together with the ease and effectiveness of a Chinese finger puzzle.

As it turned out — and somewhat to my surprise, because I thought the Halifax team’s showing was incredibly strong — the Vancouver team won the bout. I’ll certainly be glad to hear more from them this week, but the entire slam was top-notch — and those plentiful moments of silence before and during tonight’s poems will haunt me for days.

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CFSW 2010: Don’t judge me

“How would you like to be a judge tonight?” he asked.

“Uh.” Stammer. “I.” Wild gesticulation. “But.” Crotch moistness.

“You know you want to,” he confirmed.

“It’s too much responsibility,” I protested.

“It’s just a responsibility. You’ll love it”. And with that a small whiteboard was dropped into my lap and I became one of five randomly-snookered audience judges for the 2010 Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, Bout 4.

So this means I don’t have to write a review for the bout, right? Because that would be awkward? Right? I certainly understand awkward, now that I’ve been a judge.

Here’s the deal with judging, in case you don’t know:

• In a slam, teams compete in four rounds.
• After a poet presents a piece during a round, the audience judges jot down a score between 0 and 10, using one decimal place.
• There’s no time to chew over your score. The host will demand to see the judges’ decisions right away, so you need to write down a score while the audience applauds the poet.
• Your scores are read out by the host, and recorded. And so it goes, poet after poet, round after round.
• At the end of the slam, the judges’ total scores determine the winning team.

As far as I can tell, the only non-starter criteria for being a judge is that you shouldn’t be sleeping with a poet. “You can sleep with the poets after the bout,” tonight’s host said. (aside: the immortal words of Stephen Sondheim come to mind here, in imagining this scenario: “the trouble with poet is how do you know it’s deceased?”. But I digress.)

What they don’t tell you, after qualifying you as a judge, is that you’re going to be sitting in an audience surrounded by people who are sleeping with poets. And poets, too.

Our “calibration poet” was a maestro named Kim, from Montreal. I was told our scores for him would set the tone for the rest of the bout. Not wanting to be too effusive, I scored the poor boy low: 6.8. I didn’t mind being the “wicked judge” for the night.

The immediate booing and razzing was surprising, coming from folks who usually use their words. “I think,” I thought, “that I am an asshole!”

I was reminded of my instructions at the beginning of the evening: “You’re going to experience something known as ‘score creep’. You’re going to want to inch your scores up as the bout goes on. Try to resist that and stay consistent.” So: by virtue of my first (low) score, I was doomed to being an asshole all night.

Round one began. The first poet spoke. I scored low. People behind me sucked teeth. People in front of me spun around to see my board, scoffed, and made faces at me.

“I think,” I thought, “that I’m going to get lynched.”

Two poets later, I scored low again. “Where the f#*k did they get these judges?” I heard from behind me.

I resolved to stand firm.

I scored low again in round two. People scoffed. I began planning my post-bout escape.

Another low score: whisperers behind me decided I was the source of a great conspiracy.

Another low score. Friends of poets hissed “HIGHER!”. By this point I was possessed by impenetrable steely resolve. This, friends, is the arrogance Lex Luthor feels. These poets were Supermen and I was wielding whiteboard kryptonite.

At the end of the bout, when final scores were revealed, it turned out that my perception didn’t match reality — the team scores were in a perfectly normal range. This just proved that all of the razzing and moaning from the audience was just good-natured fun. And so now I want to be a judge forever. Take that, Superman.

But hang on. Just to prove that I wasn’t a curmudgeon all night, I’ll close by sharing some of the drops of verbal gold that made it into my notebook, on a team-by-team basis: I may have scored low in general, but this was terrific poetry. These lines struck me hard enough that I needed to record them.

London

• “Friends: joy is our birthright” (Elyse Maltin)
• “I B who I B ‘cuz only I can define my I D” (Dana ‘I D’ Matthews)
• “I wear my heart on my sleeve but I have this bad habit of losing my shirt” (Frankin ‘Wordzworthe’ Davis)

Toronto Poetry Slam

• “I will not remit these weapons ‘cuz I need to make it out safely” (David Delisca)
• “This essay is my desire to quote you so our conversations will be remembered… my educators of consequence were artists” (Fraser)
• “You are lightning. Be just as deadly.” (Kiki)

Calgary

• “FOB? FOB?!? Nobody uses boats nowadays, motherf#$ker!” (Joshua Bartolomé)
• “I don’t teach subjects. I teach students… I teach body odor and boners and pants put on backwards by accident” (Tyler Perry)

Urban Legends

• “Bodies dipped in red liquid like french fries” (Synonymous)
• “We are coming to know how to write poems in the final days of an empire” (Hodan Ibrahim)
• “The hands of my uncles that mop and sweep hold the keys to every room on Wall Street” (Hyfidelik)

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CFSW 2010: Last Chance Slam

Article by Kathleen Clark

L to R: Sean O'Gorman, Jenna Tenn-Yuk, Faye Estrella aka Festrell, Steve Miller, Tristan DePlume, Brad Morden

Slam ventured out of the small clubs and cozy cafes and took over Ottawa University’s Tabaret Hall to kick off the 2010 Canadian Festival of Spoken Word on Tuesday.

The “Last Chance Slam” was held to determine one final, wild card team for the Festival. Twelve poets from across the country vyed for one of the five team positions and battled for their poetic lives.

Greg ‘Ritallin’ Frankson was the sacrificial poet, with a fitting message to “hold on to your dreams.” Each competitor had every intention of holding on to this dream of getting on the last chance team.

Steve Miller from Vancouver was first to the mic, though with his booming lament that nice guys always finish last, he may not have needed it. The crowd was instantly hooked. From there on, it was impossible to tell where the poet’s energy ended and the audience’s excitement began.

Not that the crowd particularly cared. Spectators quickly took to booing any judge’s score that was in the mid-eights or lower. It seemed the audience was in every poet’s corner.

After the fourth slammer, Ottawa’s own Faye Estrella aka Festrell, laid down a culturally charged piece about her Philippine heritage, the crowd surged to their feet for a standing ovation. When the organizers of the Festival said the best of the best would be here, it was not a mere selling gimmick.

Nearing the end of round one, the mood shifted to the lighter and rather hilarious. Ottawa’s Brad Morden took the crowd into his daydreaming with a piece about his reveries. Some of the more seasoned spoken word connoisseurs present chanted along with him from their seats. With the most physical poem of the day, DMP slammed suggestively of all the wild things he would like to do with poetry. Apparently, licking the microphone does not count as using a prop.

Partway through the slam, the host, Nathanaël Larochette, reminded everyone this was only the first two hours of the Festival – something easily forgotten given the intensity of the performers to that point.

Round two had the competitors slamming in reverse order. Tristan DePlume kicked off the round with a poem for “all my lovers who couldn’t love me.” And with that, the crowd only approved of the scores if they were over nine. It was struck into an uncharacteristic silence though, when Jenna Tenn-Yuk performed a powerful piece about telling someone your deepest secret.

One of the highest scoring poems came from Sepideh. She educated the audience on the evolving role of the poppy in war, from a flower of remembrance to a tool of the heroin trade.

When it was over and all words had been said, the Slam Master, Rusty Priske, tallied up the scores to reveal the Last Chance team. Festrell, Sean O’Gorman, and Brad Morden of Ottawa along with Steve Miller of Vancouver comprise the team, with two alternates, local poet Jenna Tenn-Yuk and Vancouver’s Tristan DePlume.

The level of poetry left even the poets in the audience at a loss to describe it.

“I’m scared of them now,” said the captain of the Capital Slam team, Chris Tse, of the newly formed team.

“I’m not ashamed to say that.”

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CFSW 2010 Ottawa – Francophone Showcase

Élise Gauthier (poet, actor, director) attended the first evening of performances at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word.

The following poem is her reaction to the evening’s festivities, illustrating the range of emotions, reactions one undergoes at a slam poetry event.

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Ottawa Tonite is the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word’s official media sponsor.

Check back for updates, blog entries, photos, and videos until Saturday, October 16. For more information, please visit www.cfsw.ca

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CFSW 2010 Ottawa opens TONIGHT!

The Canadian Festival of Spoken Word (CFSW 2010 Ottawa www.cfsw.ca) kicked off this afternoon to a fiery start with the Last Chance Slam to determine the members of the Wild Card Team to compete alongside 17 other teams at the festival.

The members of the team that will be performing at the festival are Ottawa poets Faye Estrella, Brad Morden, and Sean O’Gorman, as well as Vancouver poet Steve Miller. The team has two alternates: Ottawa’s Jenna Tenn-Yuk and Vancouver’s Tristan de Plume.

CFSW 2010 Ottawa returns to the capital for the first time since its inception in 2004 with the largest slam-focused spoken word event in Canadian history. From October 12 to 16, 2010, Ottawa will be treated to a wide-ranging display of Canadian slam poetry and spoken word featuring over 100 of the best spoken word poets on 18 teams from 15 communities across Canada.

The Canadian Festival of Spoken Word takes place in numerous venues in downtown Ottawa.

For more information, please call the CFSW 2010 Ottawa hotline 613 301 8648, email info@cfsw.ca, or visit www.cfsw.ca.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:

Tuesday, October 12

University of Ottawa Tabaret Hall – 550 Cumberland St.
1 – 3 p.m.
Last Chance Slam (to determine the Wild Card team)
7 – 9 p.m.
Festival Opening Celebration & Francophone Showcase
Hosted by Mehdi Hamdad | Featuring Ivy, Marjolaine Beauchamp,
D-Track & Sophie Jeukens
9 – 10:30 p.m.
Bout 1 – National Slam Championship Preliminary Round
Victoria, Lanark County, Winnipeg, Ottawa Urban Legends

Wednesday, October 13

Cartier Place Suite Hotel – 180 Cooper Street
1 – 2:30 p.m.
Intro to Poetry Writing (for Youth) Workshop
Facilitated by Ian Keteku
2:30 – 4 p.m.
Activism in Spoken Word Workshop

4 – 5:30 p.m.
Youth Showcase Hosted by Dwayne Morgan

Ottawa Little Theatre – 400 King Edward Avenue
7 – 8:30 p.m.
Bout 2 – National Slam Championship Preliminary Round
Calgary, Ottawa Urban Legends, London, Toronto Poetry Slam
9 – 10:30 p.m.
Bout 3 – National Slam Championship Preliminary Round
Vancouver, Guelph, Peterborough, Halifax

University of Ottawa Alumni Auditorium – 85 University Street
7 – 8:30 p.m.
Bout 4 – National Slam Championship Preliminary Round
Burlington, Edmonton, Wild Card, Toronto Up From the Roots
9 – 10:30 p.m.
Bout 5 – National Slam Championship Preliminary Round
Lanark County, Ottawa Capital Slam, Montreal, Saskatoon

Hooley’s Pub – 292 Elgin Street
11 p.m.
Poetry & Music Cabaret
Featuring Scruffmouth & Moe Clark

Thursday, October 14

Cartier Place Suite Hotel – 180 Cooper Street
1 – 2:30 p.m.
Sankofa: A Poet’s Contract (Workshop)
Facilitated by Scruffmouth
2:30 – 4 p.m.
Connecting with Arts Organizations Panel Discussion
Facilitated by David Silverberg
4 – 5:30 p.m.
Steve Sauvé Memorial Nerd Showcase
Hosted by Festrell|Featuring Nadine Thornhill & Bart Cormier

Courtyard by Marriott Ottawa – Laurier Room, 350 Dalhousie Street
7 – 8:30 p.m.
Bout 6 – National Slam Championship Preliminary Round
Halifax, Winnipeg, Burlington, Ottawa Capital Slam
9 – 10:30 p.m.
Bout 7 – National Slam Championship Preliminary Round
Toronto Poetry Slam, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Vancouver

The Velvet Room – 62 York Street
7 – 8:30 p.m.
Bout 8 – National Slam Championship Preliminary Round
Montreal, London, Guelph, Wild Card
9 – 10:30 p.m.
Bout 9 – National Slam Championship Preliminary Round
Toronto Up From the Roots, Peterborough, Calgary, Victoria

Friday, October 15

Streets of Downtown Ottawa
3 – 5:30 p.m.
Guerrilla Poetry
Poets take to the streets to perform random acts of poetry

Ottawa Technical High School Auditorium – 440 Albert Street
7 – 8:30 p.m.
National Slam Championship Semi-Final #1
9 – 10:30 p.m.
National Slam Championship Semi-Final #2

Ritual Nightclub – 137 Besserer Street
11 p.m.
Kobo Town and John Carroll & the Epic Proportions

Saturday, October 16

Cartier Place Suite Hotel – 180 Cooper Street
1 – 2:30 p.m.
Poetry Slam in Schools Workshop
Facilitated by Danielle K.L. Grégoire & Lara Bozabalian
2:30 – 4 p.m.
Self-Promotion in the Digital Age (for Artists) Workshop
Facilitated by Kate Leadbeater – bilingual event
4-5:30 p.m.
Poetry and Music Showcase
Featuring Red Slam Collective

Dominion-Chalmers United Church – 355 Cooper Street
7-9 p.m.
Poets of Honour & Closing Festival Showcase
Featuring Anthony Bansfield ‘the nth digri’ & Shauntay Grant
9-11 p.m.
National Slam Championship Finals

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The Canadian Festival of Spoken Word: ready for some “life-altering POETRY”?

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Canadian Festival of Spoken Word 2010

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