Congratulations to Isabelle Ram, Reiley Murray, Jasleen Powar and our Youth Slam Grand Slam Champ, Francis Arevalo.
We had out Youth Slam Finals last night. I thought it was pretty sweet night overall. There were a few technical issues with the OS12, our feature's set up but he went acapella and did a nice job. He stayed around after and was really excited when we were done. He had places to go but the poets kept him there.
The room was full and we had them go three rounds.
8 poets in the first round: random draw
8 poets in the second round: reverse order
top 4 in the final round, scores wiped clean: random draw
Apparently Francis was on the verge of not making it through after the first round. I think he was sixth. But he did a great job with his second poem and vaulted himself onto the team. And then the last round was a crap shoot. I think he beat out Jasleen by only .3 for the crown.
Jasleen was amazing. Very confident, engaging, and a variety of different themes if not entirely different styles. It was impressive and exciting to see.
It was exciting to see all them really come out with strong performances. They all owned their space up there and stood in it honourably. Kelsey was close I think but time penalties knocked her out. Kelsey has really come a long way and her confidence is growing. She's always had some good writing chops but I think working with Barbara through the Ignite workshops has really helped her.
Ed Word did a hilarious second piece about having to learn to be a senior citizen on a cruise ship but he was too far behind after the first round to make it through.
Mac aka Appleseed brought an excellent intensity that stood out to me. But going 5 minutes and 4 seconds won't help you. I liked that enough of poets risked losing points to make their points. And we got to yell near, Shannon
Natalie brought her unique and eccentric point of view and did it shamelessly with a joy that said "I know what I'm doing, I know where I'm going, do you want to come along for the ride?" It was great to see.
Reiley brought a new level to her performance that I hadn't seen before. And she was tentative about going out for the team. I had to tell her to get her butt up on that stage. She belonged there.
And Isabelle was Isabelle...quiet, intense, at times unsettling and always really well crafted poems.
It's a very diverse team in terms of style and background. 3 women, 1 man. I'm going to encourage them to work together over the summer to see what they can come up with.
The most exciting and impressive thing to me is how diverse all 8 of the poets voices were/are. Quiet, funny, confessional, rants, heartbreak, politics, abstact weirdness, and a confidence to stand in their own personal points of view. It really is inspiring.
The new season begins next month on May 25th with our feature Mighty Mike Mcgee.
