2009 - present
URBAN
LEGENDS
POETRY
COLLECTIVE
creating peace and harmony in society through poetry.
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 exposing of more, different, lived experience is done with the hope to establish 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 venue of allsaints event space, 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.
Meet The Team
Director
Namitha Rathinappillai
Namitha Rathinappillai (she/her) is a spoken word poet, artist, and writer who has entered the poetry community in 2017. She has been involved with Urban Legends Poetry Collective ever since her engagement with the Ottawa arts community, and made ULPC history as the first female and youngest director. She hopes that with her directorships, ULPC will not sustain itself, but will scale on a substantial level. She is a two-time CFSW team member with Urban Legends Poetry Collective, and she published her first chapbook titled ‘Dirty Laundry’ with Battleaxe Press in November of 2019. She has been involved as a performer and a workshop facilitator within the Ottawa community at spaces such as Tell em Girl, Youth Ottawa, the Artistic Mentorship Program, Carleton Art Collective, Spice, The Fembassy, and more. Follow Namitha at @n.r.pillai on Instagram!
Treasurer
Sam Taskie
Sam is an architectural designer, writer, journalist and spoken word artist. Sam’s spoken word poetry career started in 2011.
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Sam has competed at the Mississauga Poetry Slam, Burlington Slam Project, York Slam, Toronto Poetry Slam, Urban Legends, Capital Poetry slam. Sam has also featured his poetry at the Urban Legends Poetry Collective opening for Natalie Hanna of BattleAxe Press.
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Sam is also the Creative Director and Host of Arts Behind the Scenes. a podcast that dives into the creative process with various artists discussing various topics ranging from the benefits to the struggles of being a career artist.
YouthSpeak Educator
King Kimbit
Nguyá»…n Anh ThÆ°, better known by her stage name, King Kimbit, is a versatile, devoted and deeply sincere Ottawa-based spoken word artist, singer and instrumentalist. King Kimbit is best known for her ability to blend gritty personal narratives with compassionate social consciousness. She articulates the spectrum of her thoughts and feelings in a way that is consistently poignant, musical and heart-felt.
As a spoken word artist, King is interested in telling stories that are authentic to her experiences and identities. With nearly equal measure, and always with her characteristic grit and musicality, King Kimbit’s poetic work details, with striking honesty, the realities of her upbringing as the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, the truths of her social vantage point as a young woman of colour, and her stance on social issues regarding racism, de/colonization, and gender inequality. King’s striking honesty, lyrical acuity, empathy and versatility as a singer and guitar-player have earned her a reputation as a welcomed and necessary voice within the landscape of Canadian spoken word.
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Staying true to her roots, King is currently coordinating Urban Legend's YouthSpeak! program providing writing and performance workshops for teens interested in either.
By now, King Kimbit is emerging as a veteran of the local and national communities in both the spoken word and hip-hop scenes, as her brand of spoken word leans poignantly on accents of rhythm, lyrical vibrancy, word-play and the power and elasticity of her distinctive singing voice. For her array of talents as well as her consistent devotion to raising consciousness and culture within every community where her art can be heard, shared and felt, King Kimbit has garnered respect and admiration not only for the sincerity and skillfulness of her art, but for the empathy, resilience, social consciousness and dedication she embodies as a community member and creative contributor.
Message from the director
What do you think of when you hear, ‘lived experiences’? One may think of empathy: seeing the world through another’s eyes, and being enlightened by a struggle they themself have never experienced. Another may see the similarities between the stories: bits and pieces that they can relate to, and have never been able to articulate until hearing it from the mouth of another. However, the end result remains consistent: you are immersed in the world of someone else’s narrative, captivated by a story, a lived experience. This divulging and consuming of experiences, is what Urban Legends Poetry Collective (ULPC) delivers.
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A poetry collective that has existed since 2009, ULPC was carried on the backs of poets in the city of Ottawa whose goal was to create a platform for poets in the city to share their stories, and for audience members to appreciate this artistry. This give and take has always been at the center of ULPC. ULPC creates a space for self-care in the most honest form: to take a moment for yourself to sit back and be immersed in the words of the talented poets within the Ottawa community -- whether these be words of wisdom or a call to action. ULPC consolidates this very idea, best put in the words of John Keating: “That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?”
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- Namitha Rathinappillai, Director of ULPC
"This divulging and consuming of experiences, is what Urban Legends Poetry Collective (ULPC) delivers."
ABOUT
ULPC has four avenues of engagement: 1) poetry slams, 2) poetry open mics, 3) womxn’s slams, and 4) YouthSpeak. ULPC Slams* are an open signup 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 slam. ULPC Broken Mics* is a spoken word open mic that differs from the poetry slam in that it is not a competition: it allows for a space for artists that may be less familiar with the poetry scene, or for those who simply want a platform to share their work without the element of competition. ULPC Womxn’s Slams* are a show run by, hosted by, judged by and performed by people who identify as womxn. The competition is laid out to allow for the voices of womxn to be heard. ULPC YouthSpeak is a spoken word mentorship program in collaboration with the Ottawa Public Library where youth ages 12-19 have an opportunity to explore their writing and performance. The collective has pulled in many local spoken word artists to impart their knowledge, experience and wisdom to the youth. We hope to encourage the next generation of spoken word poets and give them the tools they need to succeed and improve their skills.
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, with the highest and lowest score dropped. The average of the middle three scores is your score for the round! At the end of the slam, your first round score and second round score are added up to determine the winner of the slam. These scores are then used for the season to determine the top 12 who compete at ULPC Finals at the end of the season (late May). The top 5 from finals go on to represent Ottawa as a team at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word (CFSW).
*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.
*Womxn’s Slams: Womxn’s Slams follow the same structure as regular season Slams, with the difference being that the final scores of all the participants are put towards, instead of ULPC regular season finals, are put towards Womxn’s finals (generally take place at the end of July) and the winner of the Womxn’s Finals represent Ottawa at the Women of the World Poetry Slam (WOWPS).
FOLLOW US
@urbanlegendspc
code of conduct
1. To revel in an environment in which freedom of speech, self-determination and the pursuit of creative excellence are inalienable rights.
2. To participate in all Urban Legends Poetry Collective events in a way that encourages, illuminates and supports established standards of good sportsmanship.
3. To refuse to allow the competitive challenge of the poetry slam game or any others to lead me to violence, interference, direct or indirect threats.
4. To allow all participants to pursue their craft peacefully without fear of harm, harassment, or assault and without censure, regardless of past personal history: unless their present associations denote behaviours of racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, or any other form of marginalization and/or any combination of these.
5. To ask, and respectfully use the pronouns of other ULPC participants, attendees, and executive ULPC members.
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6. To adhere to a consent positive space which includes asking other participants’ permission before touching, filming, taking pictures of, or posting any media of them, and before sharing any personal and/or traumatic experiences with them.
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7. To comply with local, provincial, and federal laws pertaining to individual civil rights and physical or sexual harassment.
8. To abide by all Urban Legends Poetry Collective rules, regulations, procedures and policies, including this Code of Honour, knowing that consequences for breaking the rules/code exist and will be upheld. These consequences may include and are not limited to: restraining orders, banning performing/competing for a time period as short as a season and as long as a permanent ban, banning attendance for a time period as short as a season and as long as a permanent ban.
9. If the Code of Honour is broken, penalties will be determined by the severity of the infraction, and the ruling of the Director of ULPC or where applicable, the ULPC Executive Team.
Report an Incident
We hope that no one will have to use this link, but if someone from Urban Legends Poetry Collective or someone at an Urban Legends Poetry Collective event has harmed you physically, mentally, or emotionally, please let us know at the link below. We take these complaints very seriously.
From the ULPC Executives, we are sorry that this has happened to you.
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https://docs.google.com/forms/d/10KglOFGm5HD25ovWRKoh6KzK1N2IswKR3V9LT9mZLNQ/edit
Note: This is a direct transcription of the SpoCan Code of Honour with a few edits and the names replaced.
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