About Us
Urban Legends began as a grassroots organization, hosting events at a classroom at Carleton University in response to a need for an alcohol-free space to make performance poetry accessible to Muslim performers, youth, and all Ottawans.
Urban Legends was founded in 2009 by Ian Keteku, and Suhaib Ibn Najib, with later organisers including Sergio Guerra, Sean O’Gorman, Sarah Musa, Jamaal Jackson Rogers, Xaamud Macalinkiisa, Khaleefa Hamdan, Panos Argyropoulos, and Namitha Rathinappillai. Under the directorship of Khaleefa ‘Apollo the Child’ Hamdan, and Panos ‘Playto’ Argyropoulos, and building upon the philosophy of Jamaal Jackson Rogers, Urban Legends evolved to become a spoken word collective instead of just a slam, with a larger focus on community as opposed to competition.
Urban Legends' mandate is to support local, regional and national artists of all genders, races and ages to have a safe space to create and share poetry while simultaneously exposing audiences to professional artists and continuing the honoured tradition of spoken word.
What We Do
At present, ULPC has four main avenues of engagement: Poetry Slams, Broken Mics, Scribblin' in the Margins, and Poetry in the Park.
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1) ULPC Slams are an open sign-up event that encourage artists to come and share their work with the element of competition. Though there are a few open mic spots before the slam begins, the event is centered around the competitive slam portion. Poetry slams also includes a feature performance by a professional artist.
2) ULPC Broken Mics are a spoken word open mic that differs from the poetry slam in that they are not competitive: they allow for a space for artists that may be less familiar with the poetry scene, or for those who simply want a non-competitive platform to share their work. Performance slots at Broken Mics are 5 minutes. ULPC Broken Mics also include a feature performance by a professional artist, and a “Spotlight” performance by an up-and-coming artist in our local community.
3) Scribblin’ in the Margins is a slam and open mic series which was created with the intention of centering and celebrating voices that have been historically marginalized. Each Scribblin’ in the Margins event functions like a regular slam, but the sign up list is open to artists from specific communities and groups of people. In our first iteration of this series, the performer list consisted of people of marginalized gender identities, including but not limited to genderqueer, Two-Spirit, non-binary, transgender people, all women, intersex poets. At our next Scribblin’ in the Margins event, the sign-up list will be open specifically to BIPOC artists. Stay tuned for where we take our Scribblin’ in the Margins series in future!
4) Poetry in the Park is an outdoor open mic series held in the Summer months at Parkdale Park. There is no feature poet at Poetry in the Park events, and the shows centre around open mic performances from our local community.
Mission
Urban Legends Poetry Collective’s Mission is to give every poet in the city of Ottawa the opportunity to share their work on an accessible platform.
ULPC is keeping poetry alive by providing a 1) safe, 2) culturally appropriate, and 3) well resourced space for poets looking to share their personal stories and more intimate experiences. These three points are all necessary to create the platform ULPC believes will gather the most impactful poetry to the stage. This platforming and exposure of more, diverse, different, lived experiences is done with the hope of establishing a more empathetic understanding of the world. Our aim is that overall, this facilitates a more accepting society.
Values
A safe space refers to the commitment on behalf of ULPC to foster a space in which hate
speech or other forms of verbal assault will not be tolerated and those that perpetuate this will be held accountable for their actions.
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A culturally appropriate space refers to the context in which ULPC events are held upon: that it is an environment cultivated for poets, by poets. This is a community in which we will accept the heart wrenching poetry, the activism poetry, the laugh-out-loud poetry. Your words are valid, and the space you take up is as well.
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A well-resourced space refers not to a commercial sense of the term, but how the way in which ULPC’s already established presence eliminates any financial burden on the poet. ULPC, through an amalgamation of grant funding and audience payment, is able to fund a physical space for poet enthusiasts to gather (the Origin Arts & Community Centre, with access to microphones), but this space also refers to the established space, a space with senior poets, that has existed for the past decade. This means that poets do not have to bear the burden of booking a venue, marketing events, paying features, etc: they can simply focus on sharing their poetry.
Show Terminology
Slams: Slams consist of two rounds, where EVERY poet performs a 3 minute poem PER round (bring TWO poems!). Five judges (audience members) will score each poem on a scale of 1-10 to one decimal place, with the highest and lowest score dropped. The sum of your middle three scores makes up your score for the round! At the end of the slam, poets’ first round scores and second round scores are added up to determine the winner of the slam. These standings are then tracked over the course of the season to determine the season’s top 12 poets who compete at ULPC Finals at the end of the season.
Broken Mics: Broken mics, by nature of not being a competition, don’t have the format of ‘rounds’ in the same way slams do. Those who perform at Broken Mics also have more time to perform: with 5 minutes to do as many poems as they wish. Typical slam rules do not apply in the Broken Mic, so things like musical instruments, props, and costumes are welcome!
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