Slamapalooza Holds CIPS Championship Qualifying Match

The winner will represent the KPU slam at the national competition in April

With the opportunity of a lifetime on the line, eight poets left it all on the stage in the Grassroots Cafe to determine who would be representing Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s slam team at the Canadian Individual Poetry Slam championships. Described by organizer and host Simon Massey as, “probably the second biggest spoken word festival in Canada,” CIPS represents, for these poets and others across the nation, a chance to share their work with a wider audience than most performers will ever know.

Due to its “in-your-face” approach to a classic form of expression, slam poetry feels like an art tailored for the modern generation, an update on an old tradition. Massey considers it “one of the quickest and most solid ways to convey emotion in a short amount of time,” and notes how versatile the form can be from poet to poet.

“It gives people easy access to be open, and it fosters a safe space where someone can share their stories,” he says.

This year the CIPS finals will be held in Vancouver from April 22 to May 1. Slam poets from around Vancouver have been known to congregate at the Kwantlen Slam, and the CIPS qualifying bout on March 10 was no exception. There was, however, at least one Kwantlen student, in amongst the hardened veterans, who was eligible to compete that night, and was ready to bare her soul in the spirit of both competition and creative expression.

Like Massey, first-year journalism student Sofia Waqar has been captivated by slam poetry, and recognizes its unique ability to form a connection between speaker and audience.

“I feel that [in slam poetry] there’s this connection you get that you can’t find anywhere else. I feel that if I didn’t do slam I wouldn’t know what I’d do,” Waqar says. “You have all these thoughts and you ponder whether they are normal or weird. In slam poetry, everyone sees these thoughts as art. It’s really empowering.”

Waqar claims that joining the slam community has helped her both in building confidence and finding friends. Before taking to the stage, she tended to keep her thoughts “in the dark,” in an attempt to seem normal to others. But slam poetry has since showed her she can be whomever she wants to be.

Waqar describes her mindset on the night of the CIPS qualifying bout as solid, but wary of the competition. “I’ve been doing slam as a side thing for the last three years, on and off,” she says, “but a lot of others are super devoted to it. I was just gonna go and give it my best shot without expecting anything.”

By the end of the night the Slamapalooza representative for the CIPS championship had been decided, and Waqar admits that even she was a bit surprised that it was her.

“I cannot believe that this happened,” she said after her victory. “All of the poets I competed with are amazing. I’m just really excited and I hope that, from this point on, it’s a learning experience.”

Waqar will be in preparation for CIPS over the course of the next month, and hopes other Kwantlen students will take after her and compete at Slamapalooza for similar opportunities in the past. The regular Kwantlen slam is held every third Thursday in the Grassroots and is open to everyone.