Arts Beat by Andi Argast
Note from the underground: Spoken word is alive in local bars
We knew we were poets and we had to speak out as poets . . . We wanted voice and we wanted vision.
–Michael McClure, Beat Poet
From the depths of Centretown, the poets have spoken. Following a long and ignominious tradition, local poets have taken to the stage to breath life into the written word.
On the last Saturday of every month, Step Up SLAM, a spoken word competition takes place at the Aloha Room. Or it used to. The SLAM on Saturday October 27, was the last held at the Aloha Room, due to space constraints. Although the management at the Aloha Room have been more than happy to host the SLAM, the available room is simply too small. Step Up is currently looking for a new, larger venue. This speaks volumes about the vibrancy and the popularity of spoken word in Ottawa. No longer confined to print, poets across Canada are raising their voices and getting the word out.
Ottawa has a particularly rich source of spoken word poets; Kris Northey, Sylvie Hill and Anthony Baldwin Lewis are only a few of the more established names in the local poetry scene.
Step Up, the group run by Northey and Pierre Ringwald only began to organize regular spoken word competitions last year, but the event has grown in leaps and bounds since the first SLAM was held.
For those unfamiliar with slam poetry, it differs from spoken word only because it is held in the form of a competition. Each poet gets three minuets to say their piece without the aid of props, music or costume. A panel of audience members then judges the poet’s performance.
Slam is the newest offspring of spoken word. The three-minute time limit reflects this generation’s preoccupation with time, and the competitive edge challenges the poets to improve themselves. And as they have been for decades, the poet’s messages are often critical judgments on the direction and shape of society.
Spoken word has always offered opportunities to voice dissent and dissatisfaction.
In the late 1940’s, the Beat poets of San Francisco and New York gathered in small bars and cafés to immerse themselves in poetry, music and drink. Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gary Snyder, to name only a few, formed the basis of a literary revolution.
Through their poems, Beat poets poured forth their discontentment with a conservative and artistically stagnant society.
Precursors to the social rebellion of the 1960’s, the Beat generation dragged all the skeletons out of society’s closet. With subjects such as homosexuality, poverty, alcoholism and drug abuse, the Beat poets shocked and challenged people’s conceptions of themselves and their environment.
Ottawa’s poets are the newest voices to shape the literary world. Thanks to events such as Step Up SLAM, the poems of Ottawa’s underground have come to light. Global problems, sexual frustrations, and racial tensions are only some of the issues explored in today’s slam poetry.
The messages of these local poets are both socially poignant and lyrically moving. The spoken word scene in Ottawa is alive and growing. Kerouac would have been proud.