Apollo The Child - OG 500 Winner

Photo by James Park

Khaleefa "Apollo The Child" Hamdan, spoken word poet and co-director of Ottawa slam poetry collective, Urban Legends, won the OG 500 Poetry Slam at the 2017 House of PainT to a roaring audience of Ottawans. Hamdan is an active member of the Ottawa cultural scene, co-host of The Home Invasion Show, on CKCU, and a regular contributor to PACE Magazine.

I watch it shake

Curl and take shape

Moving in the way it wants to

In it's own pace

Envious of the way it lives,

You should see the way my mouth gapes

My hair, the mane

Defiant in the way it hangs

I remember my father once asked me

When I would cut it down

This was back in my afro days

Back when I wore my own crown

I've never been one for monarch

Or even world leaders

I've often seen their evil ways

But this crown was mine

This was around the time

When the United States went to war

With Iraq again

Under the guise of weapons of mass destruction

Defiant

I refused to reduce the size of my hair

Defiant

I told my pops I would do cut it down when Iraq was truly free

Defiant

Free from Saddam Hussein

Free from the United States

Free from the hatred my people seemed to have shackled themselves to

A shame

How we try so hard to differentiate

Even though we are one and the same

Sunnis kill shiites

Shiites kill Sunnis

Even though we are one and the same

And what Saddam Hussein did to the Kurds

Can never be forgotten

It can never be forgiven

And so I grow my hair

And I am proud of the way it hangs

Like octopus tentacles

It tangles

Knowing it is stronger together

Like my people should be

I thank the old white ladies for the compliments

I tell them,

“No you may not touch my hair, I am not your dog to be petted. To you it is only hair but to me, it

is my antenna to the Heavens”.

And it curls

And it shakes

And it moves

In the ways my life's avenues do

It is for me, it is not for you

Samson it gives me strength

It reminds me of my heritage

Of desert sands

And palm trees full of dates

And so

I will sow a date tree seed in me

So when I die

And meet the reaper

I will always have my home with me

I want my body's decay

To be able to provide shade

In a place

Where they are so quick to throw it

Rather than break bread

I kneed the dough

Because I need the dough

Working overtime to feed my home

So fuck your hair nets

And minimum wage

I'm trying to keep my family fed

Callused hands to complete the set

In kindergarten they used to mock

My mop and my locks

Like their wasn't beauty

In the wild and unkempt

So for a little while

I lived in self contempt

I thought I was ugly

But now I realize that this wild hair is a gift

Ma ameshud sharee

Akalee whoua whoua

(I will not comb my hair

I will leave it as is)

I'm more proud of it

Now that I grew up

And I let it loose

On every stage

As I produce

Art with these words I say

And I leeeeeaaaaan back

And I oil my curls

And I repeat

Ma ameshud sharee

Akalee whoua whoua

And I repeat

I will not comb my hair

I will leave it as is

And I hope to God that it tangles

Knowing that it is stronger together

Like humanity should be

VERSeFEST 17

VERSeFEST 17

By Lukasz Lukaszek

copenhagen, spain and les trumps unies

have forgiven this city's mother,

her nature too skeptical,

moods so shifty

like a bad relationship,

and welcomed vancouverites and edinburghians

dressed in Hawaiian tease who thought of vacation,

saw none of it,

then altered their plans for verse's sake

because church going and truth reading

have one thing in common:

some of it is about faith

and the other about listening.

the unfortunately hidden aspect

of our local literary scene faired well

in the hands of folk who reached them out

to birds stuck to oil in a state of red,

where the demand for orange is great.

some filled minds with danish pastries

as well as first Ulrikke moments, her

bopping, grooving, making this a capital reading, indeed.

there were others among les fous du ville,

bards mistakenly princing Kerouac

all loud and angry, hoola hoop curls

with a better view than vision, and Canada's

most dangerous poet proclaiming,

“poetry will save us

for it brings us

back to the sensuous body of language.”

unless it’s translated, then we're just

stuck with a ton of cliches.

and if Vanier could talk, it would talk about

Sir Dennis’ “monkey shit stained brown Buick”, property

of the uncle sitting in the clean laneway, while he

stones butterflies to talk in CapCity's two

official languages: political and poet.

activists! poetry needs you | no time for guilties or the weak:

it’s about recital of the fittest,

digging must be “forbidden like storming

banks or parliament,”

notes from the detained must be composed and gentle,

but strike! when necessary like the defence missions of

united nations that sound good on paper, but are not poems

themselves and distract populations with deadly blossoms.

Jordan was Abel to get it right - turn off the lights with

creativity aflicker and voice loops meaning to say that

no matter how much the indigenous speak, nobody hears it.

while the activists fought, the lovers fucked generously,

poets peed first when Madhur had to go,

Kayla licked wounds caused by toxic masculinity

and a Cannon fired x2 into the humble air of Alabama,

where dollar Bill ate all the crocodiles, had nothing

to do and lived in a polluted well.

some frolicked onstage, others said club soda

was the drink of alcoholics, so we drank beer instead

and the Czar of Britain’s Columbia spoke of the real struggle

and blockbuster closure as well as double tapped hearts.

if we've learned something, it is to not sit quietly,

perched like birds, words can wipe existence, launch wars

and to write is to make them protectors of common folk.

Ask Mehico - racism is still alive,

but where is it really from?

no mansplaining needed for it hits home when a woman

slams it down with,

“sexual assault is the only thing men alone can solve.”

you'd think she's a Lounatic, but tell me she's wrong.

The Truth Is that “God’s busy with seven billion other crazy folk,”

and “night falls as night will, out of nowhere,” in Ireland.

In Ottawa, “there’s not a cloud in the sky”... and it’s snowing.

Photo by Andrew Macartney, 2017

Bees Knees

We love the gradient transition

I discussed it with my neighbour

Hood, it’s hard not to want a real one

So bad I might have to steal ideas from everything around

Including my own dysfunction

Revelling in drug habits so close

Quarters and I walk by with my stealthily sly eyes

Smile eyed bride

Of weed

And my Ukulele, right now in bed uku-laying beside me

Toking long into the night, I cough and analyze my smoking technique

Maybe if I was quicker on my feet, I wouldn’t be so fast to admit defeat

At that old planting seeds gig

Planting trees, an ecstasy so deep with relief when I see no more in front of me

And yet without the constant toiling suffering nothing means much more of anything

Try breathing wide I tell my poor belly

An aching food bag I played this sag play once before now I’m sore

But happy like weird bees knees I’ll take two with honey please

Fuzzy legged buzzing furs sure I’ll let them land

Stillness is the secret sickle weapon i hold in the palm of my hand

Daddy gave me wifi once more in a hard camp