Youth poetry a timely voice, given racial protests
Hamilton Youth Poets is putting on a virtual Louder Than A Bomb: Poetic License Festival
As protests rage amid pandemic anxieties, in a world on high alarm that seems to get more confusing by the minute, what might the young people, too often marginalized, have to say about it?
After all, who has more of a stake? They’re inheriting this.
Hamilton Youth Poets is giving us a chance to find out, to hear and to listen and to feel, as they host Louder Than A Bomb: Poetic License Festival. Because of COVID-19, it will be taking place in a virtual format this year, through Friday.
The three-day event brings together writers, emcees, poets and poetry teams that have been formed in schools and at community centres through workshops, panel discussions, performances and competitions.
Louder Than A Bomb is the country’s largest youth poetry festival and, says executive director Nea Reid, it gives a voice to black, Indigenous, LGBTQ+ and other marginalized youth in a safe and inclusive format.
“This,” she adds, “is especially relevant in a time when racial injustice and inequity are a part of the global conversation.”
Highlights of the three days include Mark This Moment Contest, for youth 14 to 24 who will write, record and submit a video of original poems, competing for a $1,000 prize. There will also be a panel discussion called Fighting Injustice With Fiction, exploring themes of justice and activism through writing.
The Poetic License Grand Slam Championship caps things off with eight poets competing in a virtual Olympic style poetry slam for the title, in a format that celebrates the identities of all individuals via hip-hop poetry, verbal storytelling, and spoken word.
“It’s been a hard time for young people,”
Tanya Pineda on the finals stage as a high school competitor (Cardinal Newman), several years ago at Louder Than A Bomb. Tanya is now a part of Hamilton Youth Poets Teaching Artist Team and a student in the OCAD Creative Writing Program says Reid, especially with isolation and unrest, and an especially hard time for marginalized young people and young black people and others of colour. “The next best thing to being love is being heard.” And this, she says, is a chance for that.
“Poetic License is based on a realist portraiture and the telling of authentic stories,” says Reid. “During the festival, we will hear disparate voices from all over the city. Alone they are powerful unto themselves. Collectively they come to sound like the city itself. This is an open-air public practice and pedagogy. The opportunity to touch more audiences virtually at a time of racial reckoning is timely.”
The festival can be accessed at https://hopin.to/events/poetic-license and runs from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on June 11 and 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. on June 12.
Hamilton Youth Poets was created in 2012 to give community youth the opportunity to develop their creative skills and have their voices heard. HYP has evolved into an arts organization that engages Hamilton youth in the act of telling their own stories through spoken word.
The schedule consists of:
JUNE 11
Stories Read by Rappers, 10 a.m. Middle School Competition, 11 a.m. Dinner and a Dance, with Defining Movement Dance, 5:30 p.m.
High School Preliminary Bouts, 7 p.m.
JUNE 12
Stories Read by Rappers, 10 a.m. The Process of Publishing, 1 p.m. Queeriosity, 2:30 p.m.
Mark This Moment - Submission Deadline, 4 p.m.
Speak On It! Live, 4 p.m. Hamilton Arts Awards (Facebook Watch), 7 p.m.
Poetic License Grand Slam Championship, 8 p.m.
DJ After Party, 9:35 p.m.