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.

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