by VINCENT TINGUELY

As spoken word gets more entrenched in the psyches of audiences throughout North America, thanks to television programs like Def Jam Poetry, and the burgeoning slam and Fringe festival circuits, Montreal stands as one of the top spoken word cities. Veteran Montreal artists Ian Ferrier, Alexis O’Hara and Catherine Kidd regularly perform on the international level, while new talents like Luna Allison and Paula Belina set up DIY tours. Tireless producers like D.Kimm, the driving force behind the Voix d’Ameriques festival, and Endre Farkas and Carolyn Souaid, who showcase major talents at their annual Circus of Words, help make Montreal a spoken word hothouse.

Local series like Coco Café are keystones of the scene. “Spoken word isn’t about the money, it’s about artists getting together and uplifting each other with the lyrics,” says host and performer Jason “Steel” Joseph. “People come because they want to be inspired.” Coco Café is currently into its 10th year of inspiring spoken word audiences, featuring a slate of familiar names like Katalyst, Blu Rva, Black Orpheus, Queen and Lydia Lockett. Along with his monthly MC gig, Steel kept busy this year by organizing the multidisciplinary cabaret Chocolate Letters, working on a couple of poetry manuscripts and lending his voice to a new spoken word recording project at CKUT.

Hello blackbird

Another local spoken word dynamo, Jason “Blackbird” Selman, is a familiar trumpeter and poet from the Kalmunity Vibe Collective. “Kalmunity’s not just a self-contained group that doesn’t have anything to do with anyone else,” says Selman. “It excites me to see people do things on another level, outside of Kalmunity.” Selman’s spent the year co-editing a forthcoming Kalmunity anthology with Kaie Kellough. He’s also organized a series of Intimate Sky shows to bring spoken word artists together with musicians from both Kalmunity and Nomadic Massive, recorded material for a forthcoming Intimate Sky CD, written a play, and travelled to Kingston with Kellough, Katalyst, Queen and Foblaze to perform with members of Toronto’s Dub Poets Collective. But his biggest kick was last summer’s hip hop symposium in Cuba. “It was such an honour to play at the fest and meet other artists from across Latin America,” Selman says. “Being in that environment is so fertile, to the point that it just brings you to tears.”

Poetry plays an increasingly important role in these politically charged times. Artists like Neema and Fortner Anderson released impassioned recordings touching on peace, ecology and social justice, and new audiences discovered Toronto’s Rafeef Ziadah and Montrealer Ehab Lotayef at events sponsored by groups like Tadamon and the International Solidarity Movement. “It’s difficult to say what I am,” Lotayef muses. “By education, I’m an engineer, but more and more I work in, express myself through art—poetry, playwriting and photography.” In addition to numerous local performances at anti-war and prisoner justice events, Lotayef took part in the World Peace Forum in Vancouver, and an international art symposium for artists of conscience in Victoria, B.C.