Urban Soul Food @ The UrbanFood Store & Cafe, Canberra(17/9/11)

Sun 18th Sep, 2011 in Gig Reviews

Given that I have a penchant for both all things urban and food, Urban Soul Food at the Urban Food Store & Cafe seemed like the perfect place to spend Saturday evening. The Canberra leg of Global Poetics Direct From NYC Tour also coincided with the beginning of the National Poetry Slam Summit, so goes without saying that those who performed on at the slam are some of the best, both nationally and internationally.

By day, Urban Food is teeming with mums and their soy babychino-sipping children, but mere hours after the last sourdough loaf had been sold the part-supermarket, part-cafe had been transformed into a performance space. Presented by Global Poetics, The Center For Poetics and Justice, and the brains behind the NewActon precinct, The Molonglo Group, the slam used poetry to explore issues of social justice, both within Australia and abroad.

By the time we arrived, the cafe was packed with a mix of mothball-ridden trench coats, technicolour leggings and the trademark moody black of serious artists. By the time we were able to find the only vacant seats the first act was well underway, with poems performed by some of the finest poets from around the country. Brisbane’s Luka Lesson took on the role of Master of Ceremonies, introducing poet after poet until we were lost in a sea of words, beats and finger-snaps. Brisbane and Melbourne were represented by their best and the local front was taken care of with foppish man-about-town Adam Hadley and Queanbeyan’s slam superstar Omar Musa, who slammed his much lauded My Generation.

Social issues were dissected with anger, both from the poets and their riled audiences, with racism and sexism being talked about with refreshing honestly. To keep things light, we were also treated to a poem about Jesus converting to Buddism, Irish folktales, maniacal screaming and self-deprecating quips.

The first act ended and the audience spilled out onto the sidewalk, many hightailing it to the one toilet that was open for a twenty minute line-up. Thankfully, when we returned from that lengthy journey most of the revellers were still outside, which meant that a comfy couch was able to be claimed, just in time for the second act.

The purpose of the night, besides gathering some of the nation’s best slam poets together to talk about serious issues, was to hear two of New York’s highly acclaimed poets, Kevin Arkind and Jive Poetic. By the time they got to our fair city the two had already slammed in Melbourne and Brisbane, which explained why they were so comfortable with their audience, which surely differs from audiences they’d be used to back home. The two couldn’t be more different, Arkind with his orange beard and self confessed likeness to a gnome and Jive, who was every inch the cool Brooklynite. Poems about oppression, about LA, about society and about cloning were what they brought from their hometown, and the audience couldn’t have been happier, listening transfixed until it was time for rapturous applause.

The night then transformed into a ‘hip-hop dance party’, with the chairs removed and the poets, together with local beatboxer extraordinaire Kodak on the mic.

Contrary to popular belief, slamming is a young person’s game, not the domain of friendless 60-year-old hippies, but of inspired, creative and passionate artists.