April 28, 2012

KW’s First Ever Slam Team

What a great first ever finals last night! We had over 100 people gathered at the Kitchener City Hall rotunda to support and choose KW’s first ever slam team going to nationals! Veteran poet Kevin Sutton held down the big stage with his groovy vibes and Toronto’s Britta B rocked the feature set with her hilarious and and honest personality and poetry.

We were honoured to have Rachel Small in town to be our sacrificial poet of the night. It was full circle all around as Rachel had first slammed at the Rotunda stage 2 years ago at the SpeakOut slam, as did competing poet Janice Lee, and Kevin Sutton had been the host that night also. That SpeakOut event, as part of Laurier’s Global Citizenship Conference had resparked the spoken word scene in KW, so it felt real good to bring it back for finals.

Rachel Small

Our April Finals slam winner with the highest cumulative score of the night was Janice Lee. And with the highest average scores across the season of poets who competed last night, here is our first ever

KW SLAM TEAM 

5. Alternate – Jessalyn “Lady J” Broadfoot
4. Beth Murch
3. Janice Lee
2. J.t. Jones
1. LtwothaJ

LtwothaJ is also our grand slam champion with the highest average scores across the season!
Congratulations to the team, and all poets who graced the stage, including in our open mics throughout the year.

The team will be meeting soon to start putting together their repetoire of poetry  and figuring out a fundraising plan to get to Saskatoon for the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word in October 2012. Stay tuned for ways you can support your team KW!

We will also be running a few event in the summer. Maybe a film screening of “Slam!” , some poetry circles and sharing nights. So check back here, follow us on the Twitter and Facebook (links to the top right). High def videos of finals will be produced by our partners over at the Multicultural Cinema Club and going online soon too!

P.S. K-W!
K-W-P-S!

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April 24, 2012

Confirmed Finalists!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our finalists for this Friday’s final slam are confirmed! They are (in no particular order):

LtwothaJ
Jessalyn “Lady J” Broadfoot
Michael Gardner
J.t. Jones
Naomi Love
Janice Lee
Timaj Garad
Beth Murch
Amanda TK

All poets will slam in both rounds, and will be drawn at random order. We are also excited to announce that Miss Britta B will be our feature poet! Get your tickets at the Silver Spoon in Kitchener or Words Worth Books in Waterloo. The New Quarterly Magazine will be tabling, and the KW Multicultural Cinema Club will be filming our event. Get. Ready.

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April 8, 2012

Calling all future volunteers!

ATTENTION POETRY ENTHUSIASTS:

We need around 5 volunteers to sell tickets, ushering, and setting up chairs for our finals of April 27th.  If you are interested please email kwpoetryslam@gmail.com.  You will get free admission AND one of our new KW poetry slam buttons!

We are also looking for long term volunteers for our slam, so if you would like to extend your services with us please email us at the above email address indicating your full name, contact information, the position you would like to fill, and how long you can commit to said position.

Being a part of the KWPS team offers you an opportunity to learn great organizing and community building skills, a chance to work within a dynamic and growing grassroots organization, and a opportunity to be a visionary within an arts collective in its infancy. It is also an amazing addition to any resume. If you are in high school and would like to join our volunteer team, you will be awarded volunteer hours for your services and all volunteers will recieve an honorarium of $100 upon the completion of their term with us.

Details on available positions and average time commitment requirements for each can be found on the volunteer page or simply click here: http://www.kwpoetryslam.com/?page_id=12

 

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April 8, 2012

FINALS! April 27

Our slam finals will be held on Friday April 27th 2012 in the Kitchener City Hall rotunda. Tickets are $7 in advance, $10 at the door, or sliding scale. Tickets will be available next week at The Silver Spoon (217 King Street West, across from Kitchener city hall) and all proceeds will be going towards sending the KW Slam Team to Saskatoon for the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word in October 2012.

Sign up for open mic at 7, open mic begins at 7:30, slam at 8:30pm. All ten finalists will slam in both rounds, and the cumulative highest score of the night will win the slam.

Our finalists are the top ten poets from the slam season who: competed in at least 2 slams, had the highest average scores. To fill out all ten spots, the next poets who qualified were those who competed at least once with the highest average scores.

Our finalists are, in no particular order:  (All poets have yet to confirm. If poets drop out, the poets next in line will be added)

1. LtwothaJ
2. Naomi Love
3. Dylan Tern
4. Jessalyn “Lady J” Broadfoot
5 . Timaj Garad
6. Janice Lee
7. Lissa
8. Nik
9. Meme
10. Truth Is

At the end of the April finals, the top 4 average scores from our finalists across the season will form KW’s first ever Slam Team that goes to CFSW (Canadian Festival of Spoken Word) and competes against teams from across the country. The fifth highest scoring poet will also travel to CFSW as the Alternate poet. Exciting!!!

No doubt you do not want to miss this slam. KW Poetry Slam will take a break for the summer and be back in Sept-October with a showcase  of what the new KW Poetry Slam Team will be taking to Nationals!

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April 8, 2012

March Slam Winner

Congratulations to Janice Lee, winner of our March slam! More recap on that soon.

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March 28, 2012

March Slam

Our next slam is Friday March 30th at the Silver Spoon. Hosted by Meme and featuring Dwayne Morgan! Sign up at 7pm, open mic at 7:30, slam at 8:30pm. See you then!

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February 25, 2012

Feb Slam results

Congratulations to Meme winner of our February KW Poetry Slam!

1st Place Feb - Meme

It was a packed night at The Silver Spoon cafe in downtown Kitchener. Over 70 people came out to participate in the MT Space’s TELL open mic, to compete in the slam and support the growing spoken word poetry community in Kitchener-Waterloo.Our slammers were locals Malcolm McCulloch, Janice Lee, J.T., Daniel Hamilton, Lissa and Nic who came in from London, and Meme from Guelph. The night was hosted by veteran poet Alice Lee Munroe and our feature poet Beth Anne Fischer , from the Guelph Poetry Slam blew the crowd away with her sensual and celebratory poems about the earth and loooove.

Meme won her first slam ever (AWESOME!) with a score of 27.6, J.T. (first time slamming!) came in 2nd at 26.7 and Malcolm McCulloch (also first time slamming!) came in 3rd at 26.4.

Full house at the Silver Spoon

It was amazing to have so many first-times on the stage and rock the mic. Trigger warnings were used again to warn the audience of potentially triggering material by poets to allow audience members to leave if they needed to take care of themselves. The Silver Spoon hot chocolate was a hot commodity, as well as local beers available on the Silver Spoon’s new liquor license (but the event is still all ages no worries!)

Our next slam is Friday March 30th once again at the Silver Spoon. Until then, join our facebook group HERE and follow us on Twitter @KWPoetrySlam! Raise it!

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February 16, 2012

Opportunities for poets and writers!

Hey Folks check out this message from our community partner, the UW Women’s Center! If you’re interested in getting  published this is your chance!

Hey Folks!
My name is Stephanie and I’m the Literature Director at UW’s Women’s Centre! I am just posting this here about our Voices zine, as some of you may not know, Women’s Centre is in the process of compiling things to put together for our March publication for International Women’s Week! Voices began in the 1990′s with the Centre as an anthology to display various creative expressions from students. This year we are interested in looking at how we as students experience our genders on campus (although, submissions of other subjects are welcomed!) This can be expressed in many forms: poetry, story, reflections, art work, comic format etc. so no creative boundaries! We also are looking for a special submission for a campus culture-related cover art for our first edition of the semester.

The idea is to publish 1 tangible copy this term and have an online version where we will host incoming submissions to keep it up through the year. As most of you who are involved in the KWSlam scene or those new to it, this would be a great opportunity to get published(anonymous tagline is also an option) and reach outside the Slam scene with your beautiful works!

Please do pass this on to anyone you think would be interested and of course consider having something published.Please e-mail submissions to literature@womens.feds.ca.
Thank you,
Stephanie Eccles
Literature Director
literature@women.feds.ca
Women’s Centre
http://women.feds.ca/

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February 13, 2012

Support Community Arts!

The KW Poetry Slam isn’t the only arts program in town and were so glad for this! So in the spirit of community I suggest checking out Rainbow Reels 2012, Queer Film Festival. March 1st-4th. Opening night includes a film and a spectacular gala evening! Gala passes are 15$ or 10$ for students, seniors and the underpaid. Website for more details: www.rainbowreels.org

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February 7, 2012

UW Imprint Article – "Poetry Slamming"

The University of Waterloo’s campus newspaper The Imprint printed an article about our slam at the Bombshelter Pub. Read it on their website HERE or below! It also includes an interview with our feature poet, Johnny MacRae. Just a note that our slam is not “annual” as the article says, but monthly until April for this season!

POETRY SLAMMING

Feb 3 2012 in Arts by Mika Ilic, Instrumental Incidents

The KW Poetry Slam exceeds all predictions as students show their admiration for poetry

Waterloo is known for many things, but few would expect poetry to be one of them. Any that did not know so or think so would have been blown away by the outpouring of support shown at the Bombshelter on Jan. 27.

The Women’s Centre were the hosts to the third annual Kitchener-Waterloo Poetry Slam (KWPS) and it was a huge success. The night featured many students, some not necessarily from the area, as well as a seasoned slam poet all the way from Vancouver, B.C.

Before any performance even started, it was a struggle to find a seat. All tables, which were decorated with lit candles and plaster molds of breasts, were completely full, with extra chairs being lined up everywhere in the back. It did nothing to ruin the atmosphere as the crowd was clearly hungry and full of anticipation. After a small introduction by two representatives of the Women’s Centre, the MC took to the stage to go over the night’s festivities.

Unassuming but inviting, the MC explained the little nuances many seem to forget onstage (like how close you need to be to the microphone), going over how snapping was your way to express what you liked, and then opened the floor up for open-mic.

As the first willing poet went up, the air silenced, both out of respect and an anxious expectation of something good. The quiet was cut by a spoken word poem done in a cadence of hip-hop. It was a great way to begin the poetry as half way through, the poet stopped and said “I can’t remember the poem, but luckily my Blackberry does.” A small laugh ran through the crowd and removed some tension and nerves shared amongst upcoming poets and listeners. Continue reading →

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