maplElEafpoEm

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Finding its home at various venues around the city each month, the Toronto Poetry Slam - curated by Dave Silverberg - is known for its high energy levels and its ability to consistently draw crowds in excess of 100 people. For this month's installment I was among the 120 in attendance at the Victory cafe on Saturday September 30th.

Now this isn't exactly a reading series. Dave Silverberg asks who in the audience has never attended a slam before, and explains to those of us with out hands up that this is going to be "unlike anything [we]'ve ever seen before". He goes into the history briefly - a 20 year old tradition started in Chicago - but members of the audience hush him loudly. This, he explains, is another aspect of the slam that is a little different from your standard reading. Audience interaction, be it boos and hisses or woops of encouragement, is highly encouraged.

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Sunday July 30th: someone has written

PEACE
POETRY

with white chalk in the middle of the road, out front of Uprising Bookstore, Kensington Market. Beside this there is a microphone with an amp. The event is a spoken-word tag game. A poet stands on the words 'peace poetry' and peforms his or her peice. S/he finishes and calls up a poet from the crowd, tag, you're it. This next poet steps up. 

The performers today are fantastic. Their deliveries are rehearsed, confident, emphatic. The writing is bewitchingly clever, fast paced and filled to the brim. 
It seems there is  group of poets directly involved, the closest there are to features during an event like this. They are called up more often: Electric Jon, Amanda Hiebert, Dave Silverberg, Spencer, Krystle, Tommy Bewick, and Gypsy Eyes. 

Electric Jon is first up, launching into an anthem for the new Canada, the Canada under Harper - a Canada he doesn't like the look of. One of his later peices mentions Arthur Dent. He calls on Krystle. Krystle's peice is very smart and passionate, with slight feminist undertones and Sylvia Plath quotations. She is called up twice more later on, talks about power and writing ("I need writing that is heavy like a weight" and the unexplained "your pupils are not the only thing I can dilate")
Amanda Hiebert is up shortly afterward.
I can't say enough about Amanda's work - it's so funny yet heartfelt, revealing touching vulnerablility but also remarkable strength of character. Her first peice is about her family's expectations about her lovelife and her own ambitions. She says she feels like she has a puzzle of all the stars to sort out and he's "leaning over [her] shoulder saying 'that peice' and [she's] like 'get your own puzzle' ". Later she is called up again and breathlessly, desparately explains that she wants to "write you a love poem" that is "filled with everything good and strong and poetic and wise", but, she laments "in order for my love poem to be tangible my love for you would have to be tangible". 
We see many more spoken word artists between 1 and 3 PM. 
Dave Silverberg comes up thrice, the first time sharing a peice that referenced Allan Ginsberg ("I have seen the greatest streets of my time destroyed by blandness") and the second a cover poem of Mike McGee's "Like" and the third time a cover poem from the book the Spoken Word Revolution.
Tommy Bewick shares a few peices - the first time he begins by explaining his awful sunburn: he's so red because he has "fire in his veins". During this peice a small child begins break dancing on the side walk. Another peice begins "This next one is not for me. It's not for you. It's for Cory."
Spencer shares a peice about selling apples door to door as a child and meeting a woman he's attracted to ("I don't want to sell you a granny smith anymore: I want to give you my adam's apple").  The next couple of times he is called up he is met with a response from the woman living above Uprising - it is unclear whether she is angry or appreciative, but she hangs out of her second story window and yells down to him. He directs his poetry to her, and though he is talking about missing the small town he grew up in, the phrases seem to fit: "I know I left you but I don't want to break up with you!" Later I see a man gazing ominously out that same window down at Spencer, but this man never emerges to cause trouble.
Mike Dangerous is called up twice to recite his rap-influenced work. Gypsy Eyes and Tommy chant along at certain points. 
Gypsy Eyes is up twice, telling us about what in this world makes him want to "Hollaahh!" and later reading from  the Spoken Word Revolution. A man named Mike, who has a daughter in a stroller, also reads a peice from this book, called "Television".
Rahul: That Brown Bastard is called up once, and launches into a peice beginning "Rock and Roll ain't dead yet". At one point he censors himself, saying "Eff their rules" instead of "Fuck their rules" and qualifies by pointing out "there's a kid there!" (I thought that was very sweet of him). Part way through his performance, he is approached by a man wearing ragged camo and smoking a cigarette. This man comes up behind him, blindsiding him, and stands really close. The audience can see him, but Rahul doesn't know he is there and everyone thinks there is going to be a fight - it turns out this man, Bana Loco,  just wants a turn to speak.  
We also hear from Jeff Cotrill, Valentino Assenza (I'll get drunk with you anytime), Kevin Fortnum, a woman named Paula, and Paisley Rae. Paisley expresses that she wishes for one day, just one day, without any advertising (an I imagine how good that would be). Strangely, a woman in the crowd that has gathered is very angered by something Paisley has said, and comes right up to her face yelling "Who should die: the flesh or the spirit?". Paisley confessed later that she thought this woman was going to hit her "but [she] was standing over the words 'Peace Poetry' and there was no way [she] could hit her back." The woman didn't do any physical violence, but left yelling "People are dying out there, and what are you going to do? Nothing!"

The event wraps up during the afternoon, and all of the poets and spoken word artists and several audience members clump in the middle of the road to chat about the event.