By Temur Durrani
In the past few years, Ottawa’s spoken word and slam poetry scene has emerged as a unique creative space for artists to express their creative voices in an individualistic and potent fashion. With monthly events held at venues across the city, the scene that started as a small group of people has grown into a thriving community of poets and performers.
Credit: Nathan Hoo
Kamil Hakim, a prominent performer who speaks about his Somalian Muslim heritage in his poetry, says Ottawa’s scene is distinctive. “The poetry scene in Ottawa is much different than in Toronto, for example,” he says. “Ottawa, being a capital city, has this distinct sense of politics in its performances, which makes it an especially unique scene for poetry.”
Jamaal Jackson Rogers, who earlier this year was anointed Ottawa’s first English-language poet laureate in nearly 30 years, agrees the city is special: “I have been especially privileged to be able to perform poetry in the capital city of Ottawa and use it as my launchpad to advocate for the arts and youth.”
Baraa Arar, who hosts her own podcast, “The Watering Hole,” and who was part of the lineup for WE Day in November last year, believes that it was spoken word that first gave her courage to speak up about issues facing her community.
“Spoken word and poetry is a potent medium because it doesn’t have any traditional norms to follow,” Arar says. “Perhaps that’s what attracted me and other spoken word poets to this art form: the flexibility and inherent political nature of it.”
But Arar also believes that what makes spoken word special is its unique approach to politics. “It’s a democratization of the [art] form, because there is no form,” she says. “And quite frankly, it’s different because it doesn’t have any monarchs or patriarchs commissioning work.”
Rogers agrees. “We see this often with other representations of art, like the visual, where it is often commissioned by the state,” he says. “Spoken word is different.”
The poetry scene in Ottawa has particularly benefited from the Urban Legends Poetry Collective (Urban LPC), founded in 2009 by two Carleton University students, Ian Keteku and Suhaib Ibn Najib. Keteku and Najib started the collective as an alternative to several other groups that only catered to individuals that wanted to compete in spoken word tournaments such as the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word.
Rogers, who served as the Collective’s co-director from 2012 to 2014 believes in community more than competition. “We could use [Urban LPC] as a platform to encourage more of a community than a way for competition,” he says. “And doing so, I think Urban [LPC] was able to change the poetry scene quite a lot in recent years.”
“Urban [LPC] started quite literally in the tunnels [of Carleton],” Arar says. “It has since become a safe space to give people a voice that is political and powerful, and yet creative and artistic.”
To foster diversity within the community, Urban LPC has also established dry events held at venues that do not serve alcohol. This is mainly so that Muslim performers and individuals under 19 feel more comfortable attending events.
Urban LPC’s co-director, Panos Argyrop, believes this is important: “Yes, most events in the city happen in bars,” he says. “But you have to understand that if you want to truly be inclusive, you must have your events be all-ages and dry to include everyone possible.”
Argyrop also believes that inclusivity extends to sharing the stage with people that might not be comfortable sharing their art on a microphone. “We must also accommodate people that perhaps wouldn’t be comfortable sharing their thoughts on a microphone,” he says. “Urban LPC tries to cater those voices as well, by trying to create events that don’t have traditional stages that might intimidate certain crowds.”
Urban LPC has managed to do this by holdings events in speaking circles that are more inclusive towards stage-shy members of the community.
An evolution of the current poetry scene in Ottawa is marked by its members’ efforts to converge religion and poetry by using religious venues for performances. In 2013, Arar established a spoken word event at a mosque in Ottawa to create a space for poetry in religious venues. “I wanted there to be more of a bridge between religion and poetry, especially since the two go so hand in hand,” she says. “Spoken word has the power to be that bridge, but maybe places of worship aren’t yet ready to become that avenue.”
Arar believes that places of worship are quite corporatized in their way of operation. “What’s a little disheartening is that mosques and establishments are run like corporations, in the way of their bureaucracy,” she says. “If we want to truly make [spoken word] events happen in these venues, we must make sure they understand that their bureaucracy cannot get in the way of creative expression by censure or selective expression.”
Perhaps better venues for spoken word events are bookstores and cafés, like Octopus Books and Black Squirrel Books & Espresso Bar that frequently hold events for poetry recitations. Lisa Greaves, the owner of Octopus Books, believes this is important in creating community. “Part of being in a community like Ottawa is to be supportive of local practices like poetry recitation and spoken word,” she says. “That’s why Octopus [Books] tries its best to be a venue for events that cater to them.”
However, Arar also finds that there are several issues within the community, such as sexism that needs to be addressed. “It’s not a pretty part of the scene, but it is one that needs to be addressed,” she says. “The fact that the [poetry] scene is more male-dominated than people like to think, is an issue that we need to start talking about.”
Arar finds that most paid positions in the scene are filled with “white, middle-aged men.”
“This phenomenon of female underrepresentation is not exclusive to poetry,” she says. “[But] it is unfortunate that you can find it in an avenue that claims its selling point as diversity.”
Argyrop believes that Urban LPC is trying its best, given the circumstances, however. “Could it be bettered? Of course,” he says. “But at the moment, we are using all of our limited resources to provide as inclusive and safe of a place as possible.”
Argrop believes that by “keeping a track of who ends up performing on stage,” the poetry scene can be maneuvered in the right direction.
“In the past few years, we have been very intentional with who represents us on the stage, whether they be people of color, people that identify as women, or are of different sexual orientations,” he says. “We can’t possibly decide what kind of people show up at open mics and slams, but we can decide who we will represent us.”
But perhaps it is Samantha Morella, a third year political science student at the University of Ottawa and frequent performer at spoken word events, who best describes the future of the community. “Attending [spoken word] events across the city allows for me to hone in on my self-confidence and give a voice to the women in my community, in a creative way,” she says. “I see its future leading to even more avenues for people like myself who want to engage in their artistic ventures, while remaining in safe space.”
This article first appeared in the Leveller Vol. 10, No. 6 (Mar/Apr 2018).
