By Allison Chandler
It’s Saturday morning at a Starbucks in South Keys. A well-known female slam poet has just performed for a young café worker who aspires to be one himself. Many of the coffee crowd were not expecting this spontaneous artistic expression. Some are seemingly, taken aback by her brazen words.
“A-b-c-d-h-i-v-v-v let’s make use of condoms please, please, please…,” says Ingrid Joseph, otherwise known as Oni the Haitian Sensation. It is a brilliant delivery of emotion about the reality of AIDS.
After overhearing the café worker say he would like to be a slam poet, Oni brings him to the table.
Joseph (nicknamed Oni, which means “she who is desired” in Yoruba, a Nigerian language), is making significant contributions to Canadian culture. She is a spoken word artist who tries to educate people through her activism.
Just mentioning Oni’s name in the community sparks a reaction that is so overwhelmingly positive it makes you wonder: why does her reputation speak so loudly?
Her determination to overcome challenges and her talent as a slam poet might explain it. But it’s also because Oni can hook people with her words, even if poetry isn’t your thing.
Slam poetry is the competitive art of performance poetry. Invented in 1986 by Marc Smith, a poet in Chicago, slam poetry is meant to emphasize rhythm, harmonies and image in a dynamic form.
George Elliott Clarke, 2001 Governor General Award winner for poetry, is Oni’s mentor and he has watched her perform many times. He says she knows how to take issues concerning identity, race and relationships and find the poetic formula to express them.
“She has a lot of power, thought and energy,” says Clarke. “All of those things that everybody else in Canada wishes they had.”
He says she can interject humour into the serious topics she deals with in her readings, which makes her unique.
“When one takes in an Oni rendition of her poetry one finds oneself involved in a symposium, an orgy, a happening all at the same time,” says Clarke.
He says it is a cliché to talk about art being transformative, but if people of sound and open mind are in Oni’s audience, they may very well find themselves transformed.
It is this transformation after being around her that makes her addictive — not only for her message but for her personality.
After listening to Oni’s poem ABCD-HIV, her loud and intensive voice, combined with her sometimes shocking choice of words sent chills through me while I sat in the Starbucks. This is the gift everyone talks about.
“In life you have a destiny; poetry is my destiny,” explains Oni. “If you don’t choose what you do then life makes choices for you. We all have gifts; we don’t always use them.”
Paul Seesequasis, the program officer for the Canada Council for the Arts, says Oni’s voice is recognized for being dynamic and unique.
“She really pushes the envelope as an artist,” says Seesequasis.
For Oni, this ability is hereditary. She was born in Ottawa and grew up in Blossom Park, and at 33 comes from a long line of poets. With Haitian, French, Polish, Cuban and First Nations ancestry in her background, it isn’t hard to speculate as to why her material is so interesting.
Oni says slam poetry has caught on in Canada. In 2003, after competing in Chicago for the national poetry slam, she became the first director of the Canadian Spoken Word Olympics. Oni has other firsts on her résumé, like curating slam at the Ottawa International Writers Festival in 2002 and being the first Canadian woman to tour the European slam poetry circuit.
She has commissioned poems for well-known organizations, political events and many festivals but she’s also busy with other projects. Oni is an arts educator; the first poet in residence at Glebe Collegiate Institute. She has also worked as a broadcaster, publicist and producer.
“I’m just blown away that it’s all happening to the same person,” says Donna Williams, the theatre director of Arts Court in Ottawa.
She first saw Oni perform in an event called ‘Join the Crowd!,’ sponsored by the City of Ottawa.
“I am one of those people who stands on the sidelines in utter amazement,” she says.
Oni’s most recent news is the pending publication of her book, Ghettostocracy. Due out next fall or spring of 2007, the book of poetry focuses on her experiences while living in one of the most notorious ghettos in south central Los Angeles.
She explains that in the ghetto there was an aristocracy of people. She noticed the people had characters some of whom she describes as the “king of hardcore” or the “princess of pain.”
Having grown up going to school with the Trudeau boys, the contrast in lifestyles has taken her in many different directions. One was a life which she describes as living in a war zone. Five years after the LA riots and tired of living with such daily stress, Oni, a young single mother, found the courage to leave.
“Bullets were my lullaby,” says Oni.
Even though challenging times changed her, she says this isn’t what makes her a good poet. Instead, what she calls reincarnations of her life means she has co-existed with lots of people and this makes her a good communicator.
“It’s so easy for me to open my heart to people with poetry and people feel that,” says Oni.
It’s also because Oni has a sense of humour. In fact, her laugh is so infectious because of its depth and delivery that she pulls you in with her funny take on life.
She laughs when she recalls the different things she’s done, like touring Ontario as a varsity badminton athlete for Seneca College or making a CD of erotic poetry called, “Bedside Booty book.”
Oni’s nine-year-old middle son, Anthony, says his mom is good because of her energy but also for the good things she’s done.
“Like making us not poor and making us go to school,” says Anthony.
Oni says her three sons keep her honest.
She says their education is so important because her mother encouraged her to go back to school after returning from Los Angeles.
As a mature student and with the demands of being a single mother, Oni graduated from Algonquin College, where she studied interactive multi-media and web specialization.
Oni hopes to go back to school again and she says she would like to become a senator someday.
“I love learning; I love laughing; I love my children. I just love life,” she says.