spokenvisionsblog

We ALL fALL

When we gracelessly fall on our face in public, down a flight of stairs, or an invisible stump in the middle of a flat sidewalk, sometimes the first thing that comes to mind isn’t “Damn.. I think I broke something ” what most of us are wishing for in this moment, is that somebody cute walking by hasn’t caught a glimpse of our fall, right? Amidst the internal chaos happening within us, what makes us save face, get up and take our next step? Maybe we’ve fallen in cold snow, we have somewhere to be or we realize that the fall really wasn’t that bad. When we think about the risk we take every time we walk, is there something inside of us that would hinder us from trusting walking as a means of transportation from day to day?

In a sense falling can be compared to failing. In terms of seeing the goal of walking as the ability to put one foot in front of the other. So when we fall we’ve clearly failed at coordinating our feet and accomplishing the goal of walking and moving forward.What I’m getting at with this is that many of us fear falling, it causes us embarrassment, anxiety and forces us to take precautions in advance to avoid the incident all together. But when we do fall, do we lay there helplessly forever, do we always deny help to get up and do we give up on walking? We know walking literally takes us places and even if walking is not a blessing everyone of us has, do we all stop moving forward?

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Kori Lives

Passion Feature

Kori Liversage, who goes by the alias of Kori Lives, is a free-verse writer and self-proclaimed philosopher that consistently shares her passion and inspiration to the world around her. Kori has been a strong writer since a young age and the class-clown since even earlier. She began fusing her hobbies of being on stage as the MC of events and writing together when she came to Ottawa for school in 2014. She began performing her own poetry at Urban Legends poetry slams and other open mic’s at Café Nostalgica, Live on Elgin and other local establishments. Kori’s style of writing is thought-provoking and blunt, while maintaining an eloquent undertone. Her main muses are mother earth, human interactions and time travel. Kori hopes to link people together with her words, by voicing some controversial thoughts and being the odd-one out at times. She believes that sharing her outlooks can perhaps allow to expand their views, and gain the courage to speak openly as well. You can check out her poetry page, which features her own poems, local events that her or her friends will be performing at, and her taste in other art genres.

https://www.facebook.com/korilivess/

Do not fall in love with a writer.
We will capture your flaws and turn them into metaphors.
We will recount on simple pleasantries and morph them into hyperboles.
We will sort through our memories and manifest them into stanzas.
We will take everything you are and spin it into rhymes.
Do not fall in love with a writer.
We do not forget anything because our minds are like sponges.
We mix our canvases of nostalgia with mediums of wishful thinking, and you are our muse.
We stay up late at night perfecting the art of loving you through our words.
We give you old crumpled napkins and receipts from our dates covered in smeared adorations for you to keep.
Do not fall in love with a writer.
We will be able to turn you into something you are not.
We will create a lover from the depths of our mind.
We will fall in love with our own creations, rather than what you really are.
Do not fall in love with a writer.
We will continue loving you long after you have receded back into the universe.
We will speak highly of you, after we spew out our abandonment, for years to come.
We will keep our love alive indefinitely, and if that frightens you
Well
Then you’re not worthy of falling in love with a writer.

My Rise to Poetry

My Story

In the beginning there was poetry

I always wanted to write poetry, to be a poet, to perform and be apart of the spoken word community. I aspired to do all of that and in actuality set out to do nothing. For the longest time I stunted my growth in this art form. The first poem I ever wrote was for an english class in high school, it was called “Her perspective”. I knew way before that assignment that I loved poetry and had a passion for writing. As a kid I used to write stories so the thought of performing stories was an aspiration I couldn’t refuse. But I did, I’ve always gotten great feedback on the poems I’ve performed but it has never been enough. I didn’t only want to hear that I was good, I wanted to feel it for myself. I always wanted to do more with my gift and I wanted my words to get people thinking, even if they didn’t like or understand what I was saying.

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Poetry Slamming in Ottawa

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!

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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.

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