A couple weeks ago I took part in a poetry slam at Capital Slam here in Canada’s capital …Ottawa! It was my second time performing at this slam or any slam in general for that matter. I saw some familiar faces and I knew the heat some of the performers were going to bring. For those of you who don’t know much about poetry slams, or have associated poetry events to those in films such as 22 Jump Street. A poetry slam is essentially a competition where poets get on a stage and perform their poems that are then judged. At Capital Slam there is a 3 minute time limit for poems, poems are judged by randomly selected members of the audience on a scale of 1-10 and there are 2 rounds. You can write about anything and perform however you like. I’ve been to quite a few poetry slams mostly in Toronto and I’m usually blown away by the talent and content of the poems. I would say the best poetry slam I’ve been to was for Unity Charity in Toronto a few years back. I was astonished by the age of most contestants, the delivery and style of poems , lyricism and ultimately the impact they had on me. For the longest time I’ve wanted to perform in competitions and even though I never did I thank Unity Charity for giving me a start in spoken word and for exposing me to the culture and letting me get of taste of the community I one day hope to be a part of. The poetry scene in Toronto is really bumping and since I’ve come to Ottawa, I’ve hoped to get connected with the poetry scene here. Unfortunately I haven’t gotten around to it and haven’t had much luck. Personally, from what I’ve seen there isn’t as large of a platform for this art form here… yet. I know there are events that take place around the city, I may be mistaken but it’s hard to find accurate information and details online regarding these events. I will continue to look around and update. If anyone out there knows of any poetry slams going on in the greater Ottawa area feel free to give me a shout!
Posts
Passion over progress
I’m titling this post passion over progress (or lack there of) to address how important it is to be more focused on your passion than on you’re progression in the passion.
Passion over progress Personally, I know I get more caught up in stressing about how I haven’t gotten better at writing and how so many poets are lyrically more skillful than I am. Usually what happens is that I don’t write anything for a long time because I’ve discouraged myself. Having more focus on progressing than actually catering to our passions deters and sets back the actual progression.
Do you ever feel like you’re in a standstill between giving up, doing nothing and moving forward. Lately, I’ve been in the middle and I’m coming to realize that this is where I’m most comfortable. Doing nothing doesn’t require much except accepting the side of guilt that comes along with it. I’m brave enough to start and decide not to give up but not quite brave enough to keep going, push through and progress.
Dangers of a Lazy Day
I’m back to kick off the IYA series this week. From here on out the upcoming posts will be more frequent. This week, I let myself get sidetracked and I got into a bit of a mental rut that included netflix binging. I usually hate when these lazy weeks happen to me, and I’m not happy that it did but I got a chance to dig deeper into why I let it continue to be a cycle.
Lazy Days
One lazy hour can turn into lazy days, weeks, months and in retrospect sometimes a year. Many January 1st’s I have looked back into the months prior and realized that it was a really lazy year for me. As easy as it is to press play for that next Netflix episode it is so much harder to think of what’s next when it comes to the future of our lives.
IYA Launch: Get Ready With Me
It’s February 29th 2016, the extra day of the year we get to take advantage of! All around I’m hearing advice about not wasting the day and I don’t intend to do that at all. Today I am launching the very first series on my blog called Ignite Your Ambition and I’m releasing a poem called The Hour to begin! I think it’s a fitting title for a day like today. To start the series off I’d like to take up some space to tell you all about how I got here and why I do what I do.
Why Ignite Your Ambition? This stemmed from a time in grade 11 when I wanted to change my twitter name to something cooler. I loved Coldplay and because of that, I wanted to change my name to ignite your bones from the song Fix You, but that was already taken. I brainstormed for awhile and then evolved ignited ambition. Back then I always wanted to make something out of myself. I knew I had talents I could pursue, poetry being the most evident but, I had so many stalled ambitions because of my lack of will to pursue. “Ignited ambition” gave me hope to finally light the spark one day. This is where a lot of the messages in my poems come from, the idea of starting, pursuing purpose, doing what you love, not being held back, making a change and really walking into destined promises. I want to lead by example, it’s easy for me to sit behind a screen and say all these things things but without walking on faith I won’t get anywhere and I won’t inspire anyone, without taking the leap first.
It’s not your poems holding you back.
I think everyone comes to a point where they start to fall into the clichés. We all think we’re above them, that they’ll never affect us and that we don’t need anybody or any help. ( the “I can do bad all by myself” attitude). That’s a pretty unauthentic way to live but, there isn’t anybody that can stop you from feeling or thinking that way but you. You may have the high whiny nagging voice in your head saying I don’t have a talent, nobody will like me, I have no purpose, somebody out there is better than me at doing yada yada. But sure, why not think all of those things. Especially if you haven’t tried and especially because we have 9 lives to live and we have all the time in the world to wallow in our self-pity. Wrong “ain’t nobody got time for that”. I’m just tired of us individuals thinking we’re all original strugglers, like nobody before us was ever confused about life, or wondered of their purpose and talents, who failed, who cut themselves off from the world, became “cold-hearted”, who weren’t considered normal, who coloured outside of the box, who were ostracized, who were broke and tired. None one of those things matter in terms of you reaching success unless you make them matter. You can stay sad and broke all you like but until you find out that the real riches on this earth cannot be accessed through your bank account, you’re going to have a rough time finding the gold in your dirt.
spokenvisions 