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More Than Words Can Say: Capital Slam Poetry Finals

She walked across the stage, eyes downcast, with a string of beads in her hand.  As she neared the microphone, the quiet sound of her prayer filled the silent auditorium.  She looked up, and addressed the audience in a voice suddenly bold and crisp: 

“Dear Young Rebel…” 

 By the end of sacrifical poet Hodan Ibrahim’s piece, there were tears in a number of eyes, and that set the tone for the emotional, often tense Capital Slam Poetry Finals.

Over 300 people filled Ottawa University’s Alumni Auditorium to capacity Saturday night to watch the eight Capital Slam semi-finalists battle fiercely for the chance to represent Ottawa at the Canadian Spoken Word Festival in October, and to crown this year’s Capital Slam Champion. 

It was a night of bold moves: with only two rounds to qualify for the team, and a third to secure the title of Champion, these “best poets in the galaxy”, as they were introduced by Capital Slam Director Nathanaël Larochette, were prepared to take chances with their performances in order to win. 

John Akpata was the first poet to compete.  Not known for avoiding controversy, he launched into a provocative piece that reached its climax with a direct jab at allegations of a link between Umi Café and the recent Glebe RBC firebombing.  Truth Is… took the stage next with a succinct statement lamenting her disconnection from her African linguistic heritage.  Brandon Wint’s first poem was a departure from his usual repertoire of love poetry, as he shared an intensely personal piece about the effect one’s body can have on one’s destiny, to a standing ovation from a quarter of the crowd. 

Chris Tse is adept at using his cheeky sense of humour to introduce and tackle a serious subject.  In this instance, he approached the topic of labels and divisions by way of an analogy with the conflict between skiers and snowboarders.  Brad Morden followed with a poem about how the media and the news can distort the truth by not telling the entire story, or every story that needs to be told.  Loh El’s first piece of the evening expressed despair at the inequality of the world from the perspective of a person of privilege. 

Prufrock, in the first of his three exceptionally strong performances, performed a poem about the inequities faced by immigrants with degrees from other countries that aren’t considered valid here.  Open Secret took the stage to finish up the first round with a piece paying respect to his Nigerian heritage. 

After a break, the second round opened with sacrificial poet Jenna Tenn-Yuk performing a spirited piece on her crisis of cultural identity as a “Jamasian”, of Jamaican and Chinese descent. 

Open Secret started with a bittersweet poem written as a letter to his estranged mother.  Prufrock returned to the stage with a humorous but poignant piece about the perpetuation of black stereotypes.  Loh El’s second piece of the night was an impressively mature poetic offering about confronting others, and confronting shame and fear.  Brad Morden, urging the listener to “be the artist that you are”, performed an imagery-laden poem about writing itself.  Chris Tse’s knack for subtlety brought over a third of the crowd to their feet with a thoughtful, apologetic poem on Christian hypocrisy.  Brandon Wint chose a more typically romantic piece for his second performance.  Truth Is… provided a picture of the consequences of being punished for defending oneself, and the oppression of the individual that starts in school. John Akpata was last before the break, with a piece echoing the injustice of slavery and celebrating the sovereignty of the individual. 

Marcus Jameel was the sacrificial poet for the third round; the rich imagery and tight rhythm of his vivid depiction of victims rising from the dead to speak went well over the three minutes alloted, but was absolutely worth any time penalty. 

As each of the third-round finalists were announced, confirming their membership in this year’s team, the crowd let loose with wild applause.  Prufrock captivated the crowd with a brilliant piece in a rich Jamaican patois that told the story of an encounter with a crack user which, with its serious underlying message, was screamingly hilarious in content and delivery.  John Akpata, the first ever Capital Slam Champion in 2005, presented a laidback poem about his apparently frequent conversations with police officers.  Open Secret performed his ode to his sister, the source of much of his drive and inspiration, who died at a young age.  Chris Tse rounded out the set with a departure from his usual lighter fare, a detailing of the Rape of Nanking in 1937 through the eyes of his grandfather. 

While the scores were being tabulated, special guest Rob G. from England took to the microphone with something more “fluffy” than “ranty” (like the majority of his repertoire), a love poem filled with unusual turns of phrase that delighted the audience. 

Before announcing the Champion, Nathanaël named Brandon Wint as the alternate (a fifth, backup member of the team), to a round of applause.  When Chris Tse was named Champion, he proceeded to surprise everyone by taking the microphone to perform one last poem for the evening, McDonald’s Girl. 

The season has ended with a beginning: the birth of a new, strong team to represent Capital Slam at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word.  Just because the finals are over doesn’t mean there’s no more slam poetry until October, however.  The Capital Poetry Collective will be performing as part of the Ottawa Fringe Festival.  The Urban Legends finals will be on July 2nd at Roosters Café, Capital Slam will be returning to its home venue, the Mercury Lounge, on July 3rd, and on July 17th, the Lanark County finals will be at Carleton Place High School, from 12-4 pm. 

 Andrew Snowdon is a theatregoer, concert attendee, and writer living in Lowertown, Ottawa, sandwiched between a MacBook and a typewriter.  

Photography by Jes Lacasse. 

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Raise It! for the Capital Slam Semi-Finals

A poet slowly approaches the microphone on an empty stage.

On the count of three, the audience throws their clenched fists in the air, shouting “Raise it!”

This is not your average coffee-shop turtleneck-wearing finger-snapping poetry reading.

This is slam poetry.

If you’re not familiar with slam poetry, it’s a competitive form of spoken word that started in Chicago in 1984, and quickly spread to other parts of the world.  As a reaction against the sedate academic tradition of poetry reading, slam poetry is a more visceral, outspoken performance style, the content often political or intensely personal.  Most people are rendered speechless after seeing slam poetry live for the first time; the emotional intensity and skill of the performers is unlike anything they’ve experienced before.  Ottawa boasts Canada’s second-longest-running slam poetry series, Capital Slam.

The way a slam poetry competition works is simple: poets present a spoken word piece that must be three minutes or less in length.  They are judged by five audience members on the basis of content and performance, on a scale from 0 to 10 (much like you see in Olympic figure skating, for example).  To calculate the score for a performance, the highest and lowest of the five scores are removed, and the remaining three scores are added together to give a score out of 30.  The poet is penalized if they run over their allotted time.

The release on the Capital Slam website promised performances by Open Secret, Truth Is…, Chris Tse, D-Lightful, Brad Morden, Loh El, Thomas, Prufrock, Brandon Wint, Greg “Ritallin” Frankson, John Akpata, and Sean O’Gorman.  (Like musicians, spoken word performers often choose a stage name.)   Also slated to perform in a non-competitive capacity was Rusty Priske, who had been a Capital Slam finalist for the previous three years.

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When we arrived at the Alumni Auditorium on the University of Ottawa campus, the lobby area was crowded with people waiting to get in; I recognized well-known spoken word artist Marcus Jameel (who live-tweeted the event) and Jessica Ruano, in a smart red dress taking the official pictures.

Like our theatre community, Ottawa’s spoken word community is very tight; the same people crop up at every event.  Handing money to Danielle K.L. Grégoire in exchange for live poetry performances is becoming somewhat of a monthly ritual; there she was at the door taking our ticket money and stamping wrists once again.

The sight of Rusty Priske moving through the audience looking for volunteer judges was familiar.  A year ago, when I first attended a Capital Slam event, I too was given a whiteboard and a marker and the daunting task of rating the performers.  It’s a bit stressful, because the audience will heartily boo what it considers unjustified low scores, as I quickly learned—the hard way.  One of the judges selected this evening was local entrepreneur Jen Butson, who I had invited to attend; she didn’t know exactly what to expect going in, but you can read about her experience on her personal blog.

Nathanaël Larochette, director of Capital Slam, opened the sixth annual Capital Slam semi-finals by explaining how the evening would proceed; each of the twelve poets, in random order, would perform one piece, there would be a short intermission, then they would perform in reverse order. The scores would be averaged, and the top eight would advance to the finals.

It’s traditional to start a poetry slam with a “sacrifical poet”—a first performer who is not actually competing, but is still scored by the judges, to “calibrate” them.  Before inviting arRay of Words to the stage, Nathanaël explained another slam poetry tradition: to welcome each performer to the stage, to encourage them, and to provide a sense of unity, each audience member is supposed to make a fist.  On the count of three, they are to throw their fist into the air, shouting “Raise it!”

Yes, it feels silly the first time you do it.  After the first couple of times, it comes naturally.  Twelve poets later, you feel like a Black Panther.

Sacrificial poet arRay of Words stepped to the microphone with a single sheet of paper in his hand, and began to read his piece.  About a minute in, he crumpled his paper, threw it to the stage behind him, and confronted the microphone with renewed vigor and threw his whole body into the performance.

The audience was hooked.  The judges gave him scores of 8.7, 8.0, 8.7, 7.5, and 7.9, for a final score of 24.6 (don’t worry about doing the math; all the final scores for the evening are at the bottom of this article).

Chris Tse, a young Asian man with a thick, bushy head of hair, was the first poet to compete, presenting an optimistic piece about his identity and hopes for the future.  He was followed by the nonchalant, casual Sean O’Gorman, whose poem about laughter was well-received by the audience, but not as well by the judges.  Greg “Ritallin” Frankson followed with his highly metrical, hip-hop style poetry.  It seemed to me that the performers were exceptionally nervous; I guess that’s to be expected given the unprecedented size of the audience, and the importance of the semi-finals.

Next up was Brad Morden, in a pale, crumpled fedora.  His piece about searching for his birth mother was delivered perfectly, and won a long round of applause.  Truth Is… took the stage with her soulful, musical voice and varied tempo.  Open Secret took the microphone and broke into a fast-paced, thoughtful political piece.  His performance was met by a standing ovation from half of the audience, prompting Nathanaël to comment “this ain’t no hush-hush live library poetry reading” before introducing the next performer, John Akpata.

John stated “this poem contains words by Rusty Priske” before launching into a powerful piece decrying child abuse, echoing the sentiments and words of Rusty’s A Conspiracy of Shame. “You’re going to die” were the grim opening words of Prufrock’s first piece of the evening, a poem about losing sight of the basics of survival as human beings in our current society.  D-Lightful attacked the microphone with a passionate exposition of the conflict of love.

A cry of “Ezra Pound Lives!” from the audience welcomed Loh El to the stage, where his very personal poem about white privilege seemed entirely at odds with his outwardly sunny disposition.  Crowd favourite Brandon Wint melted more than a few hearts with a poem about love, truth, and illusion.  To close off the first round, Thomas McKinley took the stage; an older gentleman with clear diction, he presented a piece that was as thought-provoking as it was humorous.

Nathanaël called for a “thirteen minute intermission”, during which I bought the Capital Slam 2009 CD from Danielle at the merchandise table.

The second round opened with a second sacrificial poet, Hyfidellik, whose passionate poem describing an uncle being killed for political reasons, with its haunting refrain “There’s a war in me” drew scores of 9.2, 9.1, 8.9, 8.0, and 9.6 from the judges, for a total score of 27.2.

Starting with Thomas, the poets performed their second pieces; Loh El’s poem about his infant son garnered applause from the audience and a personal congratulation from John Akpata.  The clear crowd favourite was Open Secret’s poem commemorating the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre.  Chris Tse ended the second round with a lighthearted, fast-paced piece about girls, ending with his phone number to a wave of laughter and applause.

For the last performance of the evening, Nathanaël called Rusty Priske to the stage.  Rusty took a moment to mention that Ottawa would be host to the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word in October; “so I don’t have to follow the rules.”  He beckoned, and Danielle K. L. Grégoire walked onstage.  She looked up at the audience.

“There’s a lot of people here,” she said.

“You took our money!” joked a voice from the crowd.

Together, Rusty and Danielle performed a piece that was grafted together from two poems they had written on the same subject; the terror felt by someone walking alone at night who thinks they are being followed.  These were two poignant pieces to start with, together they present the same situation from two different perspectives, in a telling commentary on how society has changed the way we live and interact, from two of the region’s most experienced poetic performers.

After Rusty and Danielle’s performance, Nathanaël took the microphone again to announce the eight poets who would be moving on to the final round: Loh El, Brandon Wint, Brad Morden, Prufrock, John Akpata, Truth Is…, Chris Tse, and Open Secret.

The eight finalists will face off against each other on June 5th, at the Alumni Auditorium; doors open at 6:30 pm.  Arrive early.

And get your fist ready.

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Andrew Snowdon is a theatregoer, concert attendee, and writer living in Lowertown, Ottawa, sandwiched between a MacBook and a typewriter, with a cup of coffee.

Photography by Jes Lacasse.

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FINAL STANDINGS:

Finalists:

Open Secret: Round 1: 9.7 / 9.9 / 9.2 / 9.7 / 9.9 | 29.3 Round 2: 9.6 / 9.2 / 9.1 / 9.8 / 9.9 | 28.6  Final: 28.95

Chris Tse: Round 1: 9.2 / 9.7 / 8.3 / 9.4 / 9.8 | 28.3 Round 2: 9.7 / 9.9 / 8.9 / 9.4 / 9.8 | 28.9  Final: 28.60

Truth Is…: Round 1: 9.3 / 9.2 / 9.2 / 9.5 / 9.7 | 28.0 Round 2: 9.6 / 9.0 / 8.9 / 8.8 / 9.5 | 27.4  Final: 27.70

John Akpata: Round 1: 8.9 / 9.0 / 9.5 / 9.3 / 8.2 | 27.2 Round 2: 9.5 / 9.2 / 9.4 / 9.3 / 8.7 | 27.9  Final: 27.55

Prufrock: Round 1: 8.4 / 9.3 / 9.6 / 9.1 / 8.7 | 27.1 Round 2: 9.3 / 8.9 / 9.4 / 9.2 / 9.7 | 27.9  Final: 27.50

Brad Morden: Round 1: 8.9 / 8.9 / 9.5 / 8.5 / 9.4 | 27.2 Round 2: 9.7 / 8.5 / 8.7 / 9.3 / 9.2 | 27.2  Final: 27.20

Brandon Wint: Round 1: 8.8 / 8.7 / 9.0 / 9.3 / 9.7 | 27.1 Round 2: 9.7 / 8.8 / 8.2 / 8.5 / 9.8 | 27.0  Final: 27.05

Loh El: Round 1: 8.8 / 9.2 / 9.2 / 8.9 / 8.9 | 27.0 Round 2: 9.5 / 9.5 / 8.6 / 8.8 /8.9 | 26.7  Final: 26.85

Runners-up:

D-lightful: Round 1: 9.6 / 9.8 / 8.9 / 9.1 / 8.9 | 27.1 Round 2: 8.7 / 8.7 / 8.8 / 8.9 / 9.3 | 26.4  Final: 26.75

Greg “Ritallin” Frankson: Round 1: 8.0 / 8.4 / 8.2 / 9.0 / 8.5 | 25.1 Round 2: 9.4 / 8.9 / 8.7 / 9.3 / 9.0 | 27.2  Final: 26.15

Thomas McKinley: Round 1: 8.8 / 9.5 / 8.7 / 8.6 / 8.8 | 26.3 Round 2: 8.6 / 9.0 / 8.3 / 8.2 / 8.3 | 25.2  Final: 25.75

Sean O’Gorman: Round 1: 8.5 / 8.2 / 8.8 / 8.2 / 8.3 | 25.0 Round 2: 9.2 / 8.7 / 8.7 / 8.9 / 8.9 | 26.0  Final: 25.50

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The Wrecking Ball is Swinging – November 16

PRESS RELEASE:  The Wrecking Ball swings in Ottawa once again!

Following last year’s sensational pre-election event, this one-of-a-kind co-lingual soirée of political theatre returns to the nation’s capital, in tandem with other wrecking balls swinging through cities across Canada this month.

This time around, we’re inspired by Yann Martel www.whatisstephenharperreading.ca to offer a few reading suggestions of our own. With a little help from our friends, we’ll consider what it really takes to win the hearts and minds of Canadians. And with our colleagues in BC now staring down the barrel of 92% cuts in provincial arts funding, we are spurred to step up to the plate and prove once again the power of art to affect political change.

This year’s writers, directors and performers include Ritallin, Benjamin Gaillard, Mélanie Rivet, Pierre Brault, Laurie Fyffe, Kris Joseph, Patrick Gauthier, Sonja Mills, Norman Armour, Waneta Storms, Kate Smith, Nick di Gaetano, musical guest Glenn Nuotio and fresh from the national slam in Victoria, the Capital Slam Poetry Team. And many more of your local favourites!! (we just don’t know which ones yet…)

About The Wrecking Ball
The Wrecking Ball was founded in Toronto in November 2004 to address a nagging imbalance: too much theatre in our politics, not enough politics in our theatre. There have been eight Toronto Wrecking Balls cabarets to date, and the October 2008 edition saw the WB go national – Wrecking Balls were staged simultaneously in ten cities across the country, in advance of the federal election. An unprecedented mobilization of artists and art lovers.

Writers are given no more than two weeks to come up with material that reflects the current state of affairs. They are free to write on whatever topic they wish: the global, the national, the local, the very local. The plays are then cast and staged at the last minute, and this immediacy is what makes the Wrecking Ball the rollicking theatrical nerve ending that it is.

 

Monday, November 16, 2009
Box Office opens at 6:30pm

Show starts at 7:30pm
Saint Brigid’s Centre, 314 St. Patrick St. (at Cumberland)
Pay-What-You-Can (no advanced sales) – proceeds to Les Prix Rideau Awards

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