It’s coming February 21st to Ottawa at the NAC…
Each year the national government’s public broadcasting CBC hosts a poetry slam competition, the Poetry FaceOff. It has already come to a close in a few cities. Competitors from coast to coast to coast will be hosted to strut their poetic stuff again as this round is the masters of the past 5 year winners compete against each other.
For Ottawa that means DJ Morales (2006), Q the Romantic Revolutionary a.k.a. Queeverne Kirk (2005), John Akpata (2004), Jim Larwill (2003) and Matt Peake(2002).
Because CBC overwrites its page on the Face-off, blanking out the announcement (then the competitors and the sound files as the competition goes on to leave only the national winner) I’ll archive what they said before it started:
CBC Radio continues its tradition of battling bards with the sixth annual Poetry Face-Off! The popular Canada-wide competition brings together 70 poets in peak form to sound off in 14 cities stretching from Victoria to Yellowknife to St. John’s.
From January to March, five poets in each locale, commissioned by CBC regional producers to reflect local voices and traditions, will face-off before a live audience and deliver their words on this year’s theme – ‘Made In Canada’. At each event, the spectators vote for their favourite poem, and the winner goes on to be celebrated with the other regional winners in five special Poetry Face-Off programs, hosted by Bill Richardson. Those shows will air in April 2007 during National Poetry Month.
Only here is the inside scoop of the interview with one of Ottawa’s competitors and 2003 winner of the illustrious plastic crown presented by the velvet suit man, Alan Neal. He will be competing again for Ottawa in the 2007 round.
HOW HAS YOUR LIFE CHANGED SINCE YOU WON A PREVIOUS POETRY FACE OFF?
I “won†the 2003 Ottawa Poetry Face Off by a single vote.
After the 2003 Poetry Face Off for two years I danced with absolute joy.
Then for two years I cried with utter disappointment.
Now I have begun to sing. (Not enough wine and women in my life.)
And even better, I have received the news; I am going to be a Grampa.
(After the previous Poetry Face Off I did not become CEO of a Global Poetry Corporation. I have come to realise I am not even a “beautiful loser†– I am a short stocky loser, with body odour, who dresses funny.)
Since I won the 2003 Poetry Face-Off “my†life has not changed; however, our planet has shortened all human life down to three future generations.
— Jim Larwill, Omnigothic Neofuturist
The rest of the CBC questions and Jim’s Responses may leak out elsewhere. Who know? I’ll let you know if I see anything.
Last year’s Ottawa competition was pictured by John where you can see the crown refenced. You can buy the 2005 CD and other years as well.
Bonus Poetry Link: William Stobb on MiPo Radio discusses Tom Montag’s essay in the latest Hard to Say episode on how poetry ought to take us beyond poem and language and beyond ourselves. In an interview with Claudia Keelan
[cross-posted at Humanyms