‘A confluence of what’s happening in Ottawa poetry’: VERSeFest draws to a close

Ottawa's VERSeFest ran from Feb. 28 - March 4 (Photo credit: Pearl Pirie)

Pearl Pirie (blog/Twitter) is a local arts enthusiast who blogs about the city’s literary events in both word and image. Her most recent poetry collection came out last year. Thirsts (Snare, 2011) launches at Tree on Jan. 24. She will be one of the readers at VERSeFest in March.

Rachael Simpson at VERSeFest (Photo credit: Pearl Pirie)

Evan Thornton at Sneezers said: “Gain a sense of scale: In one fell swoop, you’ll get a feel for the astounding level of poetry activity in Ottawa. Not just a one-time festival, VERSeFest is actually a confluence of what’s happening in Ottawa poetry every month of every year, all the time.”

Ben Ladouceur said of Rachael Simpson’s reading: “Her work and her reading voice both brim with an unadorned kind of insightfulness. Never mind that her name is probably the least-known of the four.”

Suzanne Buffam at VERSeFest (Photo credit: Pearl Pirie)

Jenica Reid ‏tweeted: “Mike McGee, OpenSecret and Ursula Rucker just blew my mind. I don’t think I have it anymore.”

In Brenden McNally’s column, he quoted Suzanne Buffam, who came up from Chicago to read. She said she thought VerseFest is fantastic, adding, “It’s nice to see a festival that’s not about networking, it’s just about poetry.”

Outside, our ladies of posters directed pedestrian traffic to venues. (Photo credit: Pearl Pirie)

And it’s about enthusiasm.

Today is the finale, when VERSeFest welcomes Ursula Rucker to give a workshop at Mercury Lounge. (A slim chance of a spot if someone doesn’t show up to take their reserved tickets.)

At 4:30 pm, Vermont poet and novelist Paige Ackerson-Kiely and west coast Canadian poet, Barry McKinnon. At 8 pm at the NAC: Mexico poet Pura López-Colomé’s, former U.S. poet Laureate Philip Levine Governor General award-winning poet Phil Hall do the summit reading. (Tickets are still available.)

Last chance to check out VERSeFest tonight! Get out there, Ottawa!

‘This is the breath of the last word spoken’: VERSeFest & poetry for the end of the world

Photo credit: Anthony Citrano, via Flickr

Christine Northan is a local poetry enthusiast and volunteer. When she’s not studying to be a massage therapist, she enjoys all things creative that Ottawa has to offer. And long walks on the beach. Can’t forget that.

There’s been a whole lotta talk about 2012 being the end of the world as we know it (oh, you better believe REM was brought up more than once!) Tucked inside Arts Court  (2 Daly ave. ) on  a chilled Saturday evening late last month, VERSeFest celebrated the end of the Mayan calendar, a fundraiser inviting poets to explore such thoughts via apocalyptic poetry. And it was a great teaser of things to come when VERSeFest kicks off at the end of THIS month, so let me share the experience with you.

The all-women's slam was one of the fundraisers taking place in the lead-up to VERSefest, which starts Feb. 28 (Photo credit: Pesbo, via Flickr)

So began the “poetry for the end of the world contest” … Now whittled down to six finalists, tonight they present their pieces — we the audience have a vote — and the winning poem will be sent off into the ether via weather balloon!  How did VERSeFest even get their hands on a weather balloon? I suspect it was Rod Pederson, VERSeFest Director and gracious host of the evening, which began in the studio.

I was greeted by Ottawa’s warm and eclectic poetry scene.  The studio is painted black, and fuschia lighting set the mood.  A stage was set, the fresh VERSeFest logo on display, t-shirts being sold, and I grinned at this poetry festival’s maturation in just one year.

St. Ambroise stocked the bar as well as gourmet sandwiches from Pressed, a new Café in Centretown (750 Gladstone Ave.) The room filled as local folky acoustic trio Call me Katie started things off at 7:00 pm — I dare you to not tap your feet!  After the tunes we jaunted on over to the theatre for Open Mike, which is always so inspiring because you never know who is going to share, or what they’ll share – a safe haven of self-expression.

After a wee break, it was time for the six finalists to present their pieces. Lines that struck a chord:

1- Amanda Earl: “I am afraid, so very afraid of the dark…”

2- Ian Ferrier:  “this is the breath of the last word spoken”

3- Terry Ann Carter:  “for us there is only light…”

4- Sheila Forsythe:  “never ending playlists – heal the world, doom take a backseat…”

5- Ali Fatolahi: “you I and ours…”

6- Carol A. Stephen:  “the walking off place in the end time…”

Ian Ferrier won the 'End of the World' poetry contest (Photo credit: Pesbo, via Flickr)

Voting time! REM’s “End of the World” hit, accompanied by a lyrical slideshow as we contemplated our vote – Congratulations to audience fave Ian Ferrier for his piece “Letters from the Ice Age.”

To everyone’s surprise and delight it was decided that all six poems would share the tube attached to the weather balloon!

After featured readers David O’Meara, Brigitte DePape, Rhonda Douglas and Monty Reid read their work, at 10 p.m., we braved the frigid air and gathered in the parking lot, counted down and launched that sucker! All necks remained extended as the poems bee-lined for the oblivion swirling all the way.  We stared and stared, until the balloon was barely distinguishable from the stars.  They say it can reach up to 100,000 feet before bursting… I wonder where the poems are right now…?  We hurried inside for a second round of open mike, followed by Montreal indie band Puggy Hammer, who closed the night by rocking our worlds, but not before a poetry-karaoke-kazoo presentation.

What keeps me coming back to the poetry scene is the people, how one braves the stage, expressing their authentic self. The words and the silence between and we’re present.  Community. Oneness. All in all a fantastic teaser of what to expect at this year’s VERSeFest -  Feb.28-March 4. 

Thanks, Christine! Feels like we were there! VERSeFest will feature more than 30 poets for here and around the world starting on Feb. 28, and you can buy tickets online, at The Manx, at Collected Works, or at the door.

Literary snapshot: What’s happening in February

Photo credit: Ben Oh (via Flickr)

Kathryn Hunt is a displaced Maritimer who first arrived in Ottawa 15 years ago. A published poet and freelance writer, Kate blogs, performs and talks the city’s budding literary scene at every opportunity! She also enjoys cycling and rock-climbing in her spare time.

It’s probably a good thing there’s an extra day in February this year, it’s so packed with literary events.

I’ll actually start at the end with the biggest literary event for the month: VERSeFest 2012. This new festival dedicated to bringing ‘page’ and ‘stage’ poetry together starts on Feb. 28 and goes till March 4 Last year’s Festival was a rousing start for this new venture and this year they’re going much bigger, with international stars, workshops and a full six days of events. Headliners include The Summit Reading, with top poets from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico (Phil Hall, Philip Levine, and Pura López-Colomé), American spoken word and hip hop star Ursula Rucker, Pulitzer Prize winner Rae Armantrout, and beloved blues poet C.R. Avery.

There are also a lot of workshops going on this month: In/Words, the Carleton-based literary journal and writers’ group, is holding a series of workshops in 1811 Dunton Tower on campus, all starting at 6:00: on Feb. 6 it’s “Humour in Poetry” with Bardia Sinaee; on Feb. 9 it’s “Editing and Publishing Fiction” with Dave Currie; and on Feb. 13 it’s “The Spoken Word” with Brandon Wint.

The Tree Seeds workshops, held before the Tree Reading Series, are also a great free resource for stretching your poetry skills: their next one focuses on reshaping a rough poem. It’s on the 14th, with Glenn Kletke, at the Arts Court at 6:45.

VERSeFest will also feature a couple of free workshops on Saturday, March 3, at Arts Court: At 1:00 local poet and teacher Danielle Gregoire will be hosting an all-ages writing workshop (Danielle is great at working with different age groups), and at 3:00 there’s a slam workshop with former World Slam Champion Ian Keteku.

They’re also presenting a workshop with the legendary spoken word and hip hop star Ursula Rucker, from Philadelphia. She’s in town for VERSeFest and running a workshop at the Mercury Lounge on Sunday, March 4. The workshop is $50 and includes a ticket to her Saturday show. Signup is first-come, first-served: email versefest@live.ca anytime after 10:00 am on Feb. 1. The first 20 people to email will reserve space, and have seven days to get payment to VERSeFest to confirm. A waiting list will be maintained as well.

Voices of Venus for February will feature Abby Paige on Wednesday the 8^th at 8:00 pm: Abby is a writer, actor and editor who’s just moved to Ottawa. Voices of Venus is always a good time: one of Ottawa’s rowdier, and cheerier, literary audiences. The (ladies only) open mike is fun too. The show’s at Venus Envy at 320 Lisgar.

The Undercurrents theatre festival runs from the 7^th to the 19^th at the Irving Greenberg Centre – a great mix of independent, new, adventurous productions from across the country and local shows. Undercurrents was a huge hit with its inaugural festival last year, and this year’s edition’s been hotly anticipated.

Capital Slam on Feb. 11 (this is at a different time from usual because of VERSeFest), features local, national, and international champion Ian Keteku as well as the usual slam competition. Also, February’s slam will give priority in the signup to people who haven’t competed yet this season, so show up early to get on the list.

The Tree Reading Series is featuring Leslie Vryenhoek (an editor at Riddle Fence) and Marilyn Bowering (shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award) on the 14^th – yes, that’s Valentine’s Day, but think about the long and storied history of poetry and romance!

For any Lord of the Rings fans, or fans of Wagner, there’s the Ottawa Storytellers show at the Fourth Stage on the 16^th: “Dragon’s Gold: A Sword Reforged, A Ring Accursed.” Three storytellers – Jennifer Cayley, Jan Andrews, and Katherine Grier – all of whom are great at telling Norse legends, will be telling stories from the original Quest of the Ring. The show’s at 7:30: tickets are $20.

Also on the 16^th, the A B Series presents GEODE, a music and poetry group including poet Susan McMaster and a group of musicians on bass, winds steel guitar, keyboards and percussion. Their work blends poetry, jazz, blue, new music, world music and classical. They’ll be performing at Gallery 101 at 8:00. Tickets are $9.

The next night, the 17^th, the Factory Reading Series is hosting Deanna Young, Mike Blouin and Robin Macdonald, over at the Carleton Tavern (upstairs). Two of the writers – Deanna Young and Mike Blouin – are launching new chapbooks, and Robin Macdonald has poetry in the latest issue of the online journal Ottawater.

On Sunday the 19^th, Dusty Owl is hosting their annual fundraiser for Ottawa’s delegates to the Black Youth Congress; they partner with 3 Dreads and a Bald Head, a group that works to provide opportunities to black youth in Ottawa, on this fundraiser each year. It’s at the Elmdale House Tavern on Wellington, at 3:00 pm, and will feature poets Joanne John, Jacqueline Lawrence, and John Akpata.

Friday the 24^th is Once Upon a Slam, one of the only storytelling slams in the country. It’s just like a poetry slam, except you get five minutes to tell a story. Audience judges rate the stories – it’s all in fun – and there’s a featured performer. I’ve become a regular at OUAS: the stories are always varied and fun, and whenever I can, I sign up for the slam. It’s at the Mercury Lounge: doors at 6:45, slam at 7:15.

And then we’re all off to VERSeFest!

Lots of opportunity to take in some great events, Ottawa. Which are YOU going to attend?

Literary snapshot: What’s happening in January

Photo credit: Ben Oh (via Flickr)

Kathryn Hunt is a displaced Maritimer who first arrived in Ottawa 15 years ago. A published poet and freelance writer, Kate blogs,performs and talks the city’s budding literary scene at every opportunity! She also enjoys cycling and rock-climbing in her spare time.

It’s a new year for Ottawa’s literary scene, and man, is January busy!

If you resolved to explore your creative side this New Year and you’re looking for people to help you do it, you can check out some of the writing groups that meet regularly around town. Carleton University’s In/Words magazine and small press meets every Monday and Thursday at 6:00 PM on the 18^th floor of Dunton Tower (the tall tower in the middle of campus) for group criticism and workshopping: bring 6-8 copies of your latest work to share.

If you need a kickstart out of writers’ block, you can meet up with the Creative Writing Play Date, which meets at Mother Tongue Books at Bank and Sunnyside at 8:00 every Tuesday. Hosted by local writer Sean Zio, the Play Date is a drop-in workshop: participants are given a writing exercise at the beginning of the evening and write in the first half, then return and read their new work to each other in the second. It’s intended as an encouraging space to try new things and dedicate time to writing.

And then, of course, there are always a ton of literary happenings to get out to this month:

Jan. 7 sees the first Capital Slam of the season, at the Mercury Lounge. The competition has been getting really interesting, with a lot of new poets coming up through the ranks, including a hefty crop of women slammers (a welcome sight.) Their feature for this event is also well worth getting out to see: Brendan McLeod has been performing as a poet, musician, slam champion, novelist – and now storyteller – for years, touring across England and North America. I’ve never yet seen a Brendan McLeod show that didn’t make my whole week better. Doors and slam signup are at 6:30 at the Mercury Lounge.

A scene from a previous Capital Slam (Photo credit: Pesbo via Flickr)

The women’s performance series, Voices of Venus, will be featuring Kay’la (Kiki) Fraser on Jan. 11. Kiki has been a member of the Toronto Poetry Slam Team and the Burlington Slam Project Team and has featured at a number of shows across Canada – sharing the stage with artists like Shauntay Grant, Tasha Jones, Dwayne Morgan,

Brendan McLeod and C.R. Avery. The show is at Venus Envy, 230 Lisgar. It’s $5 or pay-what-you-can; the doors open at 7:30, open mike is at 8:00, followed by the feature.

Jan. 12 sees a reading by Henry Beissel at the A B Series called “From Icarus to Idi Amin.” The reading’s at 7:30 (doors at 7:00) at Laurier House, and the admission’s free, although if you want tea and scones, bring some cash and show up while supplies last.

On Jan. 13, the School of the Photographic Arts is hosting the fourth installment of a collaborative project curated by rob mclennan called “Call and Response,” in which a photographer’s work is responded to by a poet. The poet for this installment is the marvelous Sandra Ridley, responding to the exhibition Study of Structure and Form by Pedro Isztin. There’s always something to be learned when one artist uses their art form to interpret another’s. The opening, reading, and vernissage is on the 13^th at 6:00; the photographs will remain on display until Feb. 6.

The Dusty Owl’s Jan. 15 feature is Brandon Wint: a two-time member of the Canadian National Champion Slam Team, member of the popular spoken word group The Recipe, and an unabashed love poet, Brandon recently released a gorgeous short video, ‘Poetry in Motion,’ which was one of the top videos in the Ottawa International Film Festival’s music video challenge. Dusty Owl is at 3:00 at the Elmdale House Tavern: the show’s free but they pass a hat.

Brandon Wint performs at a previous VERSefest (Photo credit: Pesbo via Flickr)

For a little live storytelling, and if you like true-life stories or war history, check out the Ottawa Storytellers’ ‘A House Divided: Stories of the American Civil War’ on Jan. 19 at featuring storytellers Gail Anglin, Tom Lips and Daniel Kletke, who will tell stories of people on both sides of the war, framed by the songs that would have moved and encouraged the soldiers and their families at home. It’s part of the Ottawa Storytellers’ “Speaking Out, Speaking In” series at the National Arts Centre Fourth Stage.

The A B Series is bringing the Montreal spoken word artist Cat Kidd back to Ottawa, along with fellow Montrealer and “word-sound systemizer” Kaie Kellough, on Jan. 20 at Gallery 101. Cat Kidd is a hard-to-define performer, combining performance poetry with a stage-covering, dancelike theatricality in which she can sometimes embody multiple personas at the same time. Kaie Kellough blurs the lines between words and rhythms with his brand of bop-inflected poetry. The show is at 8:00 PM, and tickets are $9.

On the next day, the 21^st, you can celebrate the end of the world (because that’s supposed to happen in 2012, right?) with VERSe Ottawa. They’re having a party at Arts Court, with live music from Call me Katie and Puggy Hammer, open mikes, poetry readings, and the announcement of the winner of their Poetry For The End of the World contest. The winning poem will then be attached to an actual weather balloon – at the party – and sent to “The End Of the World.” How cool is that? (The contest details are on their website, at versefest.ca.) The show is a fundraiser for VERSeFest: it kicks off at 7:00 and goes all night with alternating readings, music, and open mikes, and space to socialize in the studio.

And just before the month runs out, you can also get out on the 27^th, for the launch party of the eighth issue of the poetry PDF journal ottawater. A bunch of contributors to the journal will be there to read their work; the party kicks off at 7:00 at the Carleton Tavern, upstairs, with readings at 7:30.

Last but certainly not least, the next day you can witness the city’s first Women’s Slam Championship on Jan. 28 at 7:00. An invitational slam, this event will put twelve women from the history of Ottawa’s slam scene on stage at Arts Court to compete for the title, from the latest group of new poets (one of them only 14 years old and already a national youth champion) to one of the co-founders of Capital Slam, and everything in between. Ottawa’s women slammers have been taking their place at the forefront lately: this is a chance to see the best of the best. The event is also a VERSeFest fundraiser: the top four poets will be invited to perform at the festival, running Feb 28-March 4. 

Sounds like a fun month — if you can brave the cold! Thanks, Kathryn!

Something in the Ottawater: Rusty breaks down the city’s Slam scene

Rusty Priske (blog/Twitter) is the Slam Master at Capital Slam and has represented Ottawa on the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word a record four times. He is an unabashed Slam proselytizer.

Rusty Priske

The slam scene in Ottawa is my home, just as much as any place with four walls and a roof could be.

It has helped define my life over the past five plus years and I can hardly remember what my life was like without it. Of course, that just may be due to my failing memory. I am getting old, you know.

My faulty memory aside, I am one of the oldest slammers on the scene and I believe I have been involved in slam longer than most in our local community. (Though we have some vets making a comeback appearance this January!)

So what makes the Ottawa slam community so special to me?

Let’s go back to the beginning… to my introduction to the world of slam. My wife, Ruthanne Edward, and her friend (local blogger and columnist) Nadine Thornhill had decided to go to something called Capital Slam back in January of 2006. I had never heard of slam and wasn’t really interested in poetry, but I agreed to come along. It was held in a bar on Bank St. called the Gap of Dunloe. By today’s standards, it is hard to imagine a Capital Slam in a place like that. The lay-out was not good for a show and the bar was still open for ‘non-show’ business, so the poets were sometimes competing with the bar patrons for ‘ear-space.’

That show was not only the first for all of us, it was the first performance of Nathanael Larochette, who went on to be the Director of the Capital Poetry Collective – the organization that produces Capital Slam. It was the first performance of Mosha Folger, who became a well-known face on the scene. That night happened to be hosted by John Akpata, the first ever Capital Slam Champion and the long-standing host of Monday Night Scribes on CHUO. The scorekeeper was Steve Sauve, who was often considered the heart of the scene, and our greatest loss.

By the end of the show, I had an idea for a poem I wanted to write.

A few months later Greg ‘Ritallin’ Frankson announced that he was stepping down as Collective Director and that Elissa Molino and Danielle Gregoire were taking over. They produced a volunteer sign-up list and before I knew it, I was the Collective Treasurer.

The sense of belonging happened immediately. I found myself surrounded by people who LOVED this art form that was sinking its tentacles into my brain and heart. I got to know people like Danielle and Nathanael. I got to know people like Steve and Festrell. I got to know people like Kevin Matthews and Jessica Ruano.

Well-known Ottawa spoken word poet John Akpata (Photo credit: Pesbo, via Flickr)

But that was the slam scene in 2006. Support was passionate but the scene was still fairly small. Capital Slam moved from bar to bar, trying to find its feet. It wasn’t until the 2007 finals that we booked the Mercury Lounge, at the suggestion of Andrew Brittain, our CD producer from Mudshark Audio. We had no idea that we had found another integral piece that would help define Capital Slam over the next years.

The next piece came in the form of a single poet that somehow heralded the start of a movement. In the summer of 2007 Ruthanne and I were at a Dusty Owl show (one of the long-standing poetry readings around the city), and a name was called up for the open mic that we were not familiar with. Poetic Speed. We went and spoke to him as soon as we could and let him know that his incredible style of delivery and his powerful words would do very well at Capital Slam. That fall, first he came and slammed. Then OpenSecret came and slammed. Then Ibn Najeeb (then known as Marcus Jameel).

Ottawa spoken word poet Ian Keteku (Photo credit: Pesbo, via Flickr)

The floodgates were opened. People in Ottawa learned that slam was HOT and that you were guaranteed and awesome show when you came down. The artistic visions shown on stage inspired poet after poet to share their words and thoughts until we had gone from struggling to keep the show going and filling the stage to have sold out shows and a fight to get on the sign-up list in time.

For those years, Capital Slam was the only game in town but in 2009 Ibn Najeeb and Ian Keteku (by then they had both been Capital Slam Champions) formed Urban Legends at Carleton University. A slam with a very different feeling than CapSlam, though with many of the same poets, it only added to the growing excitement in the city. Throughout there have been other shows, like the Oneness Poetry Showcase (organized by CapSlam Champion Free Will) and the Bill Brown 1-2-3 Slam (organized by Capital Slam founder Greg ‘Ritallin’ Frankson), that came and went but not without leaving their own impressions on the slam scene. Former Capital Poetry Collective Director Danielle Gregoire also founded the Lanark County Slam (now known as LiPS), which sent the first rural team to the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word.

Then, of course, there is Voices of Venus. Organized by Festrell and Amazon Syren, VoV created a place for women to share their poetry of all styles. When they came along, the Ottawa scene had become very male and VoV helped recreate the culture where everyone could feel comfortable sharing their art. While it is not a slam, the change in culture has certainly been felt on the slam scene as now nearly half of the poets that take the slam stages in Ottawa are female.

Adeena Karasick at last year's Voices of Venus (Photo credit: Pesbo, via Flickr)

The term ‘Ottawater’ was coined (to the best of my knowledge) by a Toronto poet named L.E.V.I.A.T.H.A.N. He was featuring at Capital Slam sometime after the 2008 Canadian Festival of Spoken Word (held in Calgary that year), and he talked about how the Capital Slam team had caught many of the seasoned vets off guard. The team of Marcus Jameel, Poetic Speed, Nathanael Larochette and OpenSecret (I was team alternate) made a big splash, grabbing a third place nationally. He said that there must be something in the ‘Ottawater’ to make so many amazing poets.

If so, it has been working overtime as 2009 saw the CapSlam team (Ian Keteku, Poetic Speed, OpenSecret, Brandon Wint and myself as alternate) winning the National Slam Championship… only the third team ever to do so as Vancouver and Halifax had dominated the previous years.

Being with that team in Victoria and watching them perform to the best of their ability and win the championship remains one of the best moments of my life. The evening had started out very emotional for me already as Greg Frankson had done a tribute for Steve Sauve, who had died earlier that year. Then my team kept me an emotional wreck in an evening that ended with us holding the trophy high. (Ultimately it led to the formation of The Recipe, which is now the top spoken word group in the country.)

In 2010, the festival moved to Ottawa. That year, not only did the Capital Slam team (Chris Tse, OpenSecret, PrufRock, John Akpata and Brandon Wint) repeat as champs, but second place went to the brand new Urban Legends team! (Ibn Najeeb, Synonymous, Hyfidelik, Hodan Ibrahim and D-Lightful)

There was definitely something in the Ottawater.

And it didn’t end there! In 2011 the close bonds in the Ottawa slam community were never more apparent as when the Capital Slam team included Sean O’Gorman, who had taken over running Urban Legends along with Hyfidelik and Sarah Musa, and the Urban Legends team included Brad Morden, who had taken over as Capital Poetry Collective Director after Nathanael Larochette stepped down.

At the festival (held in Toronto this year), the Urban Legends team performed on the finals stage and ‘changed the game’ with a highly choreographed production of a Just Jamaal poem.

Ottawa's Youth Slam Team (Photo credit: Arrdeejayy, via Flickr)

But also at the festival, we got to see how deep those Ottawater streams run! A year before, at the festival in Ottawa, a poet from Toronto named Yahuda Fisher, announced his intention to add a youth slam component to CFSW. Greg Frankson and Danielle Gregoire had recently founded the Ottawa Youth Poetry Slam and they sent  team made up of Switch, CauseMo, Scotch, Biting Midge and Blue (stage names are very popular in the Ottawa slam scene…). These young poets tore up the stage, doing a series of team pieces with a level of sophistication and complexity that rivalled anything on the main finals stage.

So where does that leave us?

The scene is always evolving. Capital Slam moved to two shows a month a few years ago and Urban Legends followed suit this year, so it is possible to go and see some amazing slam poetry every single week in Ottawa. Ruthanne Edward, long a fixture as doorperson at CapSlam shows, has been running Once Upon A Slam, a STORY slam, once a month for over a year. The slam and spoken word communities were an integral part of the first VERSeFest – Ottawa’s poetry festival – earlier this year. VERSeFest is now sponsoring the very first Ottawa Women’s Slam Championships, to be held in January, 2012. (Which will include some of the biggest names from Ottawa’s slam history). The next VERSeFest (Feb.29^th-March 4^th, 2012) will feature top spoken word names like Ursula Rucker, C.R. Avery. ‘Mighty’ Mike McGee, Shauntay Grant and more.

The Ottawa Slam scene is an amazing, vibrant community to both share and partake in one of the most beautiful and exciting forms of art possible. With the random nature of the judging, coming to a slam makes you PART of the show and, just maybe, you will find what you need there and step onto the stage. Many find that, once they do, their lives are never the same.

It is a community in every sense of the word, but I have another word for it. I call it ‘home.’

If you weren’t intrigued before, I’m sure you are now … Thanks for the amazing description of the Slam scene, Rusty!

Literary Snapshot: What’s happening in December

Photo credit: Ben Oh (via Flickr)

Kathryn Hunt is a displaced Maritimer who first arrived in Ottawa 15 years ago. A published poet and freelance writer, Kate blogs, performs and talks the city’s budding literary scene at every opportunity! She also enjoys cycling and rock-climbing in her spare time.

As the temperature drops, it seems the literary scene only gets hotter: between now and the end of the year there are a whole lot of chances to get your literary events in!

Suzanne Steele at the Tree Reading Series last year (Photo credit: Pesbo, via Flickr)

On December 13^th, the venerable Tree Reading Series is holding an all-open-mic session at the Arts Court Library, along with a talk on contemporary poetics by Shane Rhodes, one of Ottawa’s edgiest poets. Tree’s known for offering more than a simple reading, being one of the only series in town that offers talks and conversations on poetry as well as workshops. This evening will start at 6:45 with a free workshop with Governor General’s Award winner Phil Hall, then Shane’s talk at 8:00, and then an open mike – with prizes!

On December 14^th, Voices of Venus is presenting local author and storyteller Marie Bilodeau. An award-winning fantasy author, with four novels under her belt and a fifth about to be released, Marie is known – maybe notorious – for her strong female characters, her humour, and her appetite for epic destruction. Marie is also an entertaining storyteller – sometimes hilarious, sometimes lyrical. The show starts at 7:30 at Venus Envy with an all-women open mike: $5/PWYC and open mike performers get in free.

PrufRock performs at the Capital Slam showcase earlier this year (Photo credit: Pesbo, via Flickr)

If you like the fire of slam, Capital Slam is rounding out the year with a fantastic feature at the Mercury Lounge on Saturday, December 17: they’re featuring “Ottawa Fountain,” the National Youth Slam Champions. This team blew the competition away at the Nationals this year with their powerful team pieces and stage presence. The youngest of the team is only 13, but anyone who’s seen them agrees they could all hold their own on the mainstage alongside much older performers. The doors and slam signup are at 6:30: cover is $8, and free for performers.

On the 22^nd, The Peter F. Yacht Club, a writer’s group/community/journal which has had a powerful influence over the poetry community in Ottawa, is holding a “regatta/reading/Christmas party” in the upstairs room at the Carleton Tavern (223 Armstrong) from 7:00 pm – there will be readings by Yacht Club Irregulars like Amanda Earl, Pearl Pirie, Vivian Vavassis, Monty Reid, rob mclennan and others. Hosted by rob mclennan, the Carleton Tavern readings are always warm, smart, and fun.

In/Words is looking for submissions for its Winter edition (Photo credit: Pesbo, via Flickr)

Meanwhile, end-of-year deadlines creep up: might as well end the year by sending out your own writing!The Tree Press Chapbook Competition’s deadline for submissions is December 30. It costs $10 to enter and you can submit a chapbook of up to 32 pages; the winner gets an ISBN for their book. Submissions can be sent by mail to Tree Press Chapbook Contest, c/o Claudia Coutu Radmore, Managing Editor, 49 McArthur Ave., Carleton Place, ON K7C 2W1.

In/Words, Carleton’s literary journal, is also looking for submissions of poetry and fiction for their winter issue. The deadline to submit is December 31 – send your work to inwordsmagazine@gmail.com. The Winter issue will be officially launched at VERSeFest 2012 (Feb 28-Mar 4.)

Lots to take advantage of, Tourists! If you have a favourite scene that you like to explore in Ottawa, drop us a note at ltottawa@gmail.com.

Bridging page vs. stage: VERSeFest brings poetry communities together

All photos are courtesy of Pearl Pirie

Kathryn Hunt  is a displaced Maritimer who first arrived in Ottawa 15 years ago. A published poet and freelance writer, Kate blogs, performs and talks the city’s budding literary scene at every opportunity! She also enjoys cycling and rock-climbing in her spare time.

The closing night party might have summed up VERSeFest almost entirely.

VERSe Ottawa, a new coalition of poetry fans, reading series and slams across the city, just wrapped up its first annual festival, VERSeFest, running from March 8 to 13, and the feeling in the room at Arts Court was celebratory. Actually, it was better than that, it felt like something new, necessary, and long-awaited, had happened.

PrufRock at Capital Slam

Poetry is a strange beast. It’s hard to define, and within the blanket term “poetry” you find a wide variety of styles and artistic opinions. It’s as though you lumped all “music” into one category and then had to compare Lady Gaga to Tuvan throat-singing, Noh opera to Haydn. The term “poetry” takes in everything from hip hop lyrics to sound poetry (which, in turn, crosses over into performance art and experimental music). And at VERSeFest, for the first time, one festival took in the same wide range.

Nathanael Larochette

Sooner or later, you get the impression that poetry is split into two camps. The big divide recently has been “page” versus “stage.” At a broad sweep, “stage” poetry might be characterized as appealing to a younger, louder, “hipper” demographic. Its content is often political, and its style is often influenced by the traditions of hip hop and jazz poetry. “Page” poetry, in contrast, is often stereotyped as being academic, quiet, sometimes difficult to understand at first reading or hearing, It can be very experimental in its use of language and sentence structure, or very formal in meter and structure. Or both. “Page” poets will probably be hawking their latest chapbook, rather than a CD of their work, at the end of their readings.

I am, personally, a poetry omnivore, with a foot in either side. I volunteer regularly at Capital Slam, the city’s oldest competitive spoken word series, and I also used to help with the Dusty Owl Reading Series, which is fairly “page.” My own poetry is page-oriented and I just don’t get up to compete on slam stages. However, I’ve also memorized and performed my work, and the performance group I belong to contains two storytellers, a spoken word artist and me, the page poet.

Local Tourist, Kate, at VERSeFest

Which is why the closing party for VERSeFest was so much fun for me. There used to be a sense of “never the twain shall meet” about the two domains, which was blown away as the room was treated to everything from haiku, to love poems, to rhythmic slam poems, to soft, stark, stripped-away and syntax-busting poems, to a dose of sound poetry. (It involved the audience participating by making “tockatockatocka” sounds for about ten seconds at one point in the poem, interrupted by a building roar/scream from the poet and a few people placed in the audience: a strange stereo experience for those of us sitting in the middle of it.)

It was fun for me — throughout VERSeFest — to watch members of the audience from the “stage” side of things snapping their fingers (a spoken-word tradition) for good lines from the “page” poets. To hear the festival organizer getting choked up as he talked about the new friends he’d made among the “stage” community and the new kinds of poetry he’d discovered. And to start seeing the continuity between the different styles — to hear some of the same tricks of repetition, word play, and imagery happening in much of the poetry being read.

If you thought poetry readings were staid and stodgy, you’d have been astonished at the audiences that sold out the Arts Court Theatre until they were sitting in the aisles for the Urban Legends Slam, rocking the room with cheers for the performers. You’d have been shocked by the burlesque routine that wrapped up the Voices of Venus erotic poetry show, surprised by the audience that rose to their feet after an open mike poet read her impassioned description of the hardships of a homeless shelter, and puzzled at the music floating from the room at the Songwriters’ Circle. And you might also have been mesmerized by long, lyrical pieces, found yourself laughing out loud more than a few times, strained to hear through more than one voice performing simultaneously, and learned to listen very, very carefully as unexpected images rose from the reader’s voice.

The thing is, poetry has a long tradition of being performed aloud for a reason. People come out to poetry readings for a reason — because it’s enjoyable. Poetry and music are akin, and the sound of the language is most of the point of any form of poetry. This inaugural VERSeFest illustrated that handily; I can’t wait to see what they bring to the stage next year.

(Photo credit: Pearl Pirie)

 

VERSeFest’s participating reading series, organizations and slams where you can check out local poetry: Urban Legends Slam, The AB Series, In/Words, blUe mOnday, Dusty Owl, Sasquatch Writers Performance Series, Voices of Venus, Tree Reading Series, Plan 99, KaDo Haiku Ottawa, Factory Reading Series, and Capital Slam.

And if it’s literary, and taking place in Ottawa, it’s probably on the bywords.ca events calendar.

(Photo credit: Pearl Pirie)

 

Thanks for sharing your experience, Kate! And the beautiful photos are courtesy of Pearl Pirie. Do you want to highlight a live performance taking place in Ottawa? Drop us a line.

Nathanael Larochette

Learning to love Ottawa and its literary scene: Welcome to Local Tourist Kathryn Hunt

Kathryn Hunt  is a displaced Maritimer who first arrived in Ottawa 15 years ago. A published poet and freelance writer, Kate blogs, performs and talks the city’s budding literary scene at every opportunity! She also enjoys cycling and rock-climbing in her spare time.

I’ve been living in Ottawa, off and on, for over a decade, having moved here from New Brunswick to go to Carleton University. At the time, a friend who was living off Somerset, in the heart of Chinatown, told me that people either come to Ottawa temporarily or they fall, often unexpectedly, in love with it and stay. She said she hoped I’d turn out, like her, to be in the latter group.

Much, much later, I suppose I have. But it wasn’t until I chose to leave Ottawa, and then chose to return, that I really started to get involved in this city. After university, I moved out of Ottawa to spend a couple of years teaching English in Japan. And when I came back, I came back on the ground floor of a grass-roots literary and arts scene that was just about to blaze into life.

Poetry reading series were starting to make a resurgence; there were independent publishers and zine distribution groups cropping up; I started seeing what was going on in the arts beyond the National Arts Centre and the National Gallery. I found small galleries, small theatres, cafes hosting open mike nights and poetry readings, guerilla sound poetry performances, indie craft and zine fairs, and storytellers gathering in tea houses to trade tales. I started to get to know the people making the photocopied posters that go up all over downtown.

There’s a whole arts world going on that it feels like the rest of Ottawa is just beginning to get to know – but for the people involved in it, it’s bursting with action.

After the first Canadian Spoken WordLympics (now known as the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word) were held here in 2004, the literary scene – which was already rich with established reading series like Tree, Sasquatch, Plan 99 and the Dusty Owl, as well as one of the country’s oldest and biggest literary festivals, the Ottawa International Writers Festival – exploded with young, urban, ambitious, passionate poets.

Capital Slam was founded, the first poetry slam series; it’s since been followed by a host of other slams, spoken word and reading series. The Storytellers’ Festival was reimagined and reborn last fall. And this winter the city’s first Storytelling Slam started up in the basement of the Mercury Lounge and has already needed to move upstairs, where there’s more space for its growing audience.

As the national capital, it’s sometimes seemed to me that Ottawa is of two minds about the arts. There are the international stars and events at the NAC and the National Gallery, the stadium concerts and big-ticket festivals, and then there is a local scene, which is creative, tight-knit, thriving, and beginning to get noticed. I’m really happy to participate in that local scene, as a performer, as a writer, and as an audience member: I blog on words in performance at freerangeprint.blogspot.com, perform with the Kymeras, a poetry/storytelling group, co-host CKCU’s Literary Landscape radio program, and hope to keep celebrating this town’s creativity and spirit.

Kate will be spending her free time this week taking in VERSefest, a new, annual poetry festival running until Sunday at the Arts Court.  Check back soon to here her thoughts on this sure-to-be-amazing celebration of spoken word.