Updated: Dec 10, 2020
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
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
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