{"id":13923,"date":"2017-04-13T09:51:29","date_gmt":"2017-04-13T16:51:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=13923"},"modified":"2017-04-13T09:51:29","modified_gmt":"2017-04-13T16:51:29","slug":"slam-poetry-contest-captures-politics-love-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2017\/04\/13\/slam-poetry-contest-captures-politics-love-and-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Slam poetry contest captures politics, love, and more"},"content":{"rendered":"

Legendary American poet Robert Frost once said that \u201ca poem begins as a lump in the throat\u2026 a homesickness, a lovesickness.\u201d Some of the contestants for this year\u2019s slam-poetry competition Victorious Voices could definitely say that rings true for them. This year\u2019s alumnus of honour Sam Ferraby writes any chance he gets, and doing so has kept him sane through many different colours and dimensions of life, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really gave me such a positive outlet for a lot of things,\u201d says Ferraby. \u201cI\u2019ve always enjoyed performing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coupling creative writing and performance pieces together was a selling point for Ferraby, who has always enjoyed the spotlight of performing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Sam Ferraby is this year’s Victorious Voices alumnus of honour (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe marriage of writing and performing within it in such a unique way is something that always really appealed to me,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a great way to cathartically get feelings out, or just to come up with something that\u2019s fun to say, fun to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ferraby started performing in Victorious Voices in Grade 10. After exceeding the age limit, he went on to coach the Glenlyon Norfolk School team, of which he\u2019s also an alumnus.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been so wholly and all-encompassingly positive for me to do that on the side and have fun with it,\u201d he says. \u201cMore than anything, it is really just so fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reading competitions are comprised of 10 to 12 teams of four poets, says Ferraby, with five rounds taking place to determine the winner.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach round has a poet go individually and then the final round is a team piece where any number of members come up and do a group piece as well,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Ferraby writes about topics ranging from \u201cuntraditional love poems\u201d to Stephen Harper cutting arts funding.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was based around his quote in the Toronto Star<\/em> that occurred right around that time [when arts-funding cuts were happening],\u201d says Ferraby. \u201cHe said that ordinary people don\u2019t care about arts, so I wrote a piece called \u2018Ordinary People\u2019 about why arts matter. It was a letter addressed to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ferraby\u2019s work in the Victorious Voices events has paid off, as he earned himself the aforementioned alumnus of honour reward this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was taken aback a little bit because there have been so many phenomenal poets that have done their thing on that stage,\u201d he says. \u201cTo be considered as a poet of honour is a really excellent experience for me to get up and show another generation of high-school poets what I\u2019ve been doing and what this process can lead to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Victorious Voices
\nTuesday, April 18 to Thursday, April 20
\nVarious venues and prices
\nvicvoices.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Legendary American poet Robert Frost once said that \u201ca poem begins as a lump in the throat\u2026 a homesickness, a lovesickness.\u201d Some of the contestants for this year\u2019s slam-poetry competition Victorious Voices could definitely say that rings true for them. This year\u2019s alumnus of honour Sam Ferraby writes any chance he gets, and doing so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-webexclusive"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13923"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13927,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13923\/revisions\/13927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}