Once again, Bam! the Youth Slam is rocking the stage with a buffet of spoken word goodness to sample.

This slam is intended for poets between 12 and 19 years old, so come out to compete if you’re in that age group or come out to listen to the poet superstars of tomorrow if you’re older.

The venue is The Central, 603 Markham St, (near Honest Ed’s)

Featuring Relevant (January’s Toronto Poetry Slam winner)

It’ll be a two round slam starting at 7:30. Sign up at 7:00pm.

Facebook invite is here:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=273385804715&ref=mf#!/event.php?eid=421772285507&ref=ts

Hosted by PAN
$5 cover

If you have any questions about this event, let us know in the comment section.

When a slam is soldout by 745pm, you know you got something big going down. Toronto Poetry Slam was packed to capacity as more than 160 people were hungry to hear some potent poetics on a Saturday night.

The slammers came out in droves — 18 poets for 12 spots. The night began with some hard-hitting open mic’ers, such as Angela’s lovely piece and Fiona’s inspiring monologue. Cathy Petch led everyone with an interactive call-and-response poem.

The first round offered a variety of voices and styles, from both newbies and vets. Valentino brought the romance, PAN delivered the geek humour and Vocab dropped some rhythmic verse.

The end of the first round gave the audience their first taste of Patrick Swan, the feature from Regina. Dude did not disappoint — his crudely hilarious poems had the audience laughing, and his serious poems on love and Tourette’s could’ve made a pin-drop feel like a bomb blast. We can’t wait to see him grace a Toronto stage again.

The second and third rounds featured some hot hot poetry from the likes of Vocab, PAN, Relevant, Mahlikah and more, and when the dust settled it was Relevant taking home the top crown. Strangely enough, he was 9th in the first round, and so was last month’s winner Adrick. Eerie!

Catch Relevant doing his feature-spot thing at BAM! the Youth Slam on Feb. 10 @ the Central.

And be sure to check out the last TPS of the regular season on Friday Feb 19 at the Drake, featuring Shauntay Grant from Halifax. It’s bound to be one of the most intense slams of the year.

As we often do, here’s a quick Q&A with the feature at January’s slam, Patrick Swan from Regina. See you Jan. 16 at the Drake!

Q: Do you remember your first poem? What was it like?

Patrick Swan: I remember writing a few poems, that I thought were total crap, as writing exercises for a creative writing class I had. Stupid things about what I ate for lunch or something like that. The first thing that comes to mind in terms of what I considered to be a real poem was an epic stream of consciousness type thing I called “The bridge to insanity.” As far as spoken word goes I started writing for that medium before I ever knew it was a thing I could do somewhere. I was young and all of those old poems were Idealistic, and quite frankly embarrassing. I didn’t really find my voice until I gave up being a hippy and gave in to being bitter and jaded. I like it here though. I’m not complaining.

Q: What kind of subjects do you tend to write about? Why?

PS: I write a lot about pop culture, being in love, sex, hangovers, and depression. Why? Because it comes easiest to me. Write about what you know? Is that what they say? Pop icons are easy targets, that and sex add a little levity to the other topics that weigh on me regularly. Writing about these things helps me to “embrace the suck” as my mum would say.

Q: What’s the spoken word scene like in your ‘hood? How is different than other places you lived?

PS: The spoken word scene in Regina feels almost non existent to me. It could be that I’m just not looking hard enough to find one but there are no regular events here. Saskatoon on the other hand has a wonderful slam started up there by Taylor and Charles in a little place called Flint. It’s a great show and it’s been pleasant to see it evolve over the last year. The only reason I ever left Saskatchewan for Vancouver in the first place was because I just couldn’t do what I wanted to do here. Now that I’m back it’s nice to see that things aren’t just happening here, they’re also picking up steam.

Q: To the people coming to the Drake on Jan. 16, what kind of set should they expect?

PS: Coming to the Drake on the the 16th? I think people should expect to see explosive honesty ripped from my mouth and tear apart all the things I love and hate about life. I know I’m excited for it. It’s been a couple years now since I’ve performed in Toronto and I want to make it one of my best.

Q: What you working on now? What’s coming up for Patrick Swan in 2010?

PS: I’m renaming 2010 Year of the Swan. I’ve got big plans set in motion. Right now I’m working on putting out a new book sometime in early 2010. My friends Graham, and Sean have been helping to make it come together and create something that will really be special. I also just made a live recording of a show I did here in Regina over the holidays and plan to put out my first real “album” in the near future. Other than that I’m trying get my shit together and make a tour happen. Ideally I’d like to tour until I’m dead.

(Facebook invite for the slam can be found here:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/event.php?eid=232134656948&ref=nf)

It was a night where poets came out of nowhere to storm the stage with thoughtful verse. In fact, the slammers were completely different than last month’s poets, giving audiences some fresh material.

The first round offered us Yogi going off and on mic, to great effect; Boski telling us about how fucked up his relationships have become; Eytan Crouton explaining his writing process; and Tanya getting geological on us.

Before the second round, the Drake audience was treated to a kickass performance by our first youth slam team. Ronza, Romil, Pablo, Alexandra and Stephen gave us a glimpse of what’s to come in the spoken word scene as they dropped poems about Tamil Tigers protests, fruit bowl indecision, alliteration and sexual tension. We can’t wait to see these poets develop into all-stars.

The second round brought a bevy of dudes but few women. Yusra was the standout female, and she didn’t disappoint, delivering a poem on love that left the room quiet. Adrick, from Vancouver, combined excellent writing with humour to bring some light-heartedness to the round, and Gypsy Eyes told us a touching story about visiting his dying mother.

The third round featured Gypsy, Adrick and Macer, and it was a tight battle. Macer had the anchor spot and delivered his now-classic piece about animals in the woods, but Adrick was the winner (but he’s not coming back to TPS, he said, so catch him in Vancouver when you make the trip there). Undoubtedly, it was a strong slam to cap off 2009, and many people remarked about the diverse voices they heard on stage.

We begin 2010 with a bang, featuring Patrick Swan (Regina) on January 16. And don’t forget our all-female slam on Jan. 20 at The Boat, details in the forum.

The final slam of 2009…can you feel the excitement? Did it suddenly just get warmer? That’s cuz Toronto Poetry Slam is hot, like Natalie Portman hot — naturally beautiful, not too much makeup.

The spoken word battle concert goes down SATURDAY DECEMBER 19
@
The Drake Hotel Underground, 1150 Queen St. W.

Doors 7pm.
Signup 730pm
Slam 8

Cover is $5 (only $5!!)

Featurin the Youth Slam Team from BAM!
The Team is Stephen, Alex, Ronza, Romil and alternate Pablo

Hosted by Dave “bigdeal” Silverberg

Teams representing Buffalo, Niagara, Burlington and Toronto will be
meeting in Toronto for an intense Poetry Slam!

Dubbed the QEW Slam, this is the first event in which we hope can become an annual
occurrence. The Buffalo/Niagara Region along with Southern Ontario has
so much culture and talent. Our hope is to expose the vast talent we
have in this region. From Buffalo to Toronto we’re connected by the
Queen Elizabeth Way or QEW.

In this first year we’ll actually compete in those two cities and hopefully show that there’s not much distance
between us but there’s also about ten million people! This is a two evening event with bout 1 happening in Toronto and bout 2 happening in Buffalo on Dec. 12.

So make sure to come out and support….

Friday, December 4, 2009
7:30 pm
The Black Swan Tavern, 2nd Floor
154 Danforth Ave
$10
Featuring Versiz!

Call it the Night of the New Voices. Well, new relative to the TPS stage. The final three poets who vied for $80 and a bye into the semi’s were all new to the third-round stage — Relevant, Fraser and Vocab.
But let’s back up a bit. It was not only a night of new poets wowing the audience, but also Toronto Poetry Slam’s four-year anniversary. The fans came out in droves, so much so the Drake reached capacity by 830pm.

The first round gave us one of the strongest rounds in recent memory — David Delisca entertained us with the plight of his lost BlackBerry, Relevant bashed Facebook and social media in the most amusing way, and Aton went poignant with a touching piece about his dad. It was a Web 2.0 kinda night, because Slow Talkin like Christopher Walken also brought to the table a funny piece about a Craigslist post.

Electric Jon was the feature for the night, and he brought the energy. With his band, EJ dropped some classic pieces (”MTV is lower than a squeegee pimp!”) and debuted to Toronto some new joints that had the crowd singing along. Definitely a one of a kind poet.

The second and third rounds featured a wide variety of material, from Fraser’s take on education to Vocab’s piece on relationships to Patrick busting a hot poem about lessons offered by various role models.

When it was all said n’ done, Fraser emerged victorious, but Relevant and Vocab weren’t far behind in the scores. Also, it was a high-scoring night, a fine slam for poets to take part it in.

Check out next month’s slam on Dec. 19, featuring the Bam! Toronto Youth Slam Team. It should be a wild one!

Can you believe it’s been four years since TPS debuted its spoken word competition to the masses? Come celebrate with us this SATURDAY NOVEMBER 21 at the Drake Hotel with our November slam, featuring Electric Jon.

Signup 730pm sharp. Slam 8pm.

$5 cover.

If you have any questions, email info@torontopoetryslam.com

See ya Saturday!

Guest written by Greg “Ritallin” Frankson

After Andrea Thompson finished her set, CR Avery regaled the crowd with his mix of keyboard playin’, harmonica blowin’, poetry droppin’ goodness. Despite some technical difficulties that kept him from using one of his instruments, he still managed to bring the house down (as per usual).

It was at that time that, I should let you all know, we observed a moment of silence for Steve Sauve. I went up on stage and spoke about him for a while, and about his exhortation that we live each day as if it were our first.

After the intermission that followed, it was time for slam, but not before Emily Kwissa did a crowd-rousing rendition of her poem from the preliminary bout that has no doubt established her as a force to be reckoned with. After the showcase was over, it was time for shop. Kristy Westendorp came up to the mike to get us started.

And to be honest, I wasn’t expecting it to go the way that it did.

Team Ottawa started by sending up Brandon Wint, who won over the crowd with his beautifully heart-wrenching delivery. The impassioned performance won the high score of the round, and Ottawa never looked back. By the time Komi and Ian completed their duo performance of “K”, the rout was on. Ottawa brought the house down with those first two performances, and the cumulative scores were Ottawa 55.8, Vancouver 51.7, Wildcard 51.1 and Montreal 51.1.

And though Vancouver narrowed the gap slightly in the third round after Open Secret’s deeply personal performance of “When it Rains”, it mattered little. The team performance of “Whispering My Name” by Ian, Komi and Brandon as the first poem of the final round settled the issue once and for all. By the time they sat down and got their scores, it was mathematically impossible for the other three teams to catch up.

The celebration was on.

When the final tally had been made, Ottawa stepped up to the front of the stage to claim its first national championship!

Congratulations to Komi, Ian, Ikenna, Brandon and Rusty — BRIIK — for their hard work, dedication, focus, tenacity, inspirational performance and masterful writing. You have all done the Ottawa scene proud.

Montreal
Vancouver
Ottawa
Slaughterhouse Four (wild card team)

Those are the hot hot hot poetry teams vying for the title of CFSW Champion this year in Victoria. And what a week it’s been! I have limited Net time right now so can’t sum up all the delicious goodness, but let’s just say Toronto repped hard even though they didn’t make the Finals.

Toronto hit every mark perfectly, wowed the audience with almost every poem, and killed their team pieces. Nay, slayed! So much so that the festival organizers asked the TO team to once again stage the Bisexual Poem (team piece) tonight before the Final Four square off.

Will let you know Sunday night who wins the big shebang, or someone might tweet about it using the hashtag #cfsw09.

From Victoria with love.