The Poetry Slam: Best $5 Spent in a Long Time

Somewhere between her graduation and her future, one of my favorite people is visiting Vancouver for a month. Tonight, she invited me to a poetry slam held at Cafe Deux Soleils on the Drive. I had never been to a poetry slam before, and although I had been meaning to check out some of the events Jon wrote about back in April, I never ended up doing so.

We got to the cafe early, and were able to get a table and dinner well before the 8:45 start. I don't want to make this a restaurant review, since the spoken word was far more spectacular than our burritos and chili. But I do want to mention that the food here is delicious and reasonably-priced, so I'll definitely be trying out more of it next time. During the course of dinner, more and more people began filing into the cafe, until finally the host announced that the house was full. He asked groups from the crowd to be judges for the competition, so the four of us agreed to take part. We weren't particularly qualified, and we called ourselves The Eastern Bloc. It was a good start.

Things started off with an open-mic "warm-up" during which five or six performers took to the stage without being judged. The open-mic performers were great, and set a pretty high bar for those who were there for the competition. My favorite was called "The Worst Poem in the World," which was a humorous take on the clichés and banalities of poetry.

After that, the actual competition got under way, during which we saw around a dozen different performers get up and share their work. If I were better at this whole event review thing, I would have taken down the names of the performers so that I could give credit where credit is due. Instead, I sat captivated during the whole first round, unable to wrap my head around the incredible amount of talent that I (naively?) had no idea existed in this city. The topics people spoke about ranged from debt to colonoscopies to addiction, and dabbled into everything in between. Everyone had a unique style, and their passion for their craft was met with great enthusiasm from the audience. I found that judging during the first round was next to impossible, so most of it was left to my friends.

During the third part of the night, the main performer, Stacie Boschma, took the stage. She is from Georgia, and is currently in the middle of a tour. She was not part of the slam, so she ended up reading a collection of about five poems for the audience. I found her work to be stunning - the way she treats love, passion, attraction, and bad sex left me wanting to discover more, so I strongly encourage you to check out her cd.

After another short break, the five finalists who received the highest scores went up on stage to perform once again. As previously, they were chosen by the host in random order, and each recited one poem. A man spoke about counting the minutes on a clock during a sleepless night. A woman recited a touching poem about collecting the memories of a mid-life crisis. A younger girl with an almost haunting intonation remembered moments of missing someone. Another delivered beautiful metaphors, during which her words took on lives of their own and ended up somewhere else. The night's winner, a tall, somewhat awkward-looking guy who goes by Zaccheus, spoke with incredible speed, intelligence, and wit about hipsters and how, in the larger scheme of things, these labels don't mean a thing.

It was a Monday night that's going to stay with me for a long time. If you're stuck in a rut of cynicism and less-than-ness (you're a BR reader, right?), then try to make it out to one of these events. Perhaps I am speaking of a secret that readers already know, and it's just me who has taken so long to figure it out, but if you haven't yet discovered the spoken word scene in Vancouver, maybe it's time to try something new.

The next poetry slam will be happening at Cafe Deux Soleils on August 25th. For more information, visit the Vancouver Poetry Slam.
There are also poetry readings at the the Vancouver Public Library. Check out their calendar of events. (thanks to the guy we shared a table with for letting me know!)
Special thanks to Sal for the photos.