Dana I.D. Matthews is in Vancouver representing London at the first ever Canadian Indie Slam at the VIPF. Here’s his report:

Day 2
So yesterday I woke up after about two hours sleep but I think I’m an insomniac so its all good lol, anyways so after staying at Johnny MacRae’s, writing day one blog and doing up a couple verses I cabbed it to my hostel to check out of my room and get some money back for the nights that I won’t be there… I told Johnny and the rest I’d be back in around and hour…I lied. As soon as I got changed Perforce called me to got out for lunch with some poets, so I met them up there n the first thing I noticed is that its right beside a porn shop….classy.

In the evening we headed to the Mashed Poetix show…..nowwwww that was absolutely amazing, what they do is that they cover a music album, and after each song, there is poem based off the song, the mix of the two is just absolutely amazing, I was bumpin’ my head like a maniac and then sitting there staring intensely, it was cool. After the show, we went to another small nook & cranny establishment that was very nice, had a few drinks mingled amongst the poets and the ultimately headed back with everyone staying at johnny’s.

I can’t describe all the interesting conversations that I’ve had with everybody, like it’s absolutely amazing the knowledge and creativity and passion is truly endless. Poets need more recognition, we can do damage, we can move people, and hasn’t that been the most powerful weapon in history….influence.

Day 3:

On Wednesday night Zaccheus Jackson officially announced the rules gave us our bouts and everybody was off, either to the last chance slam or to the dub poetry jam featuring Lillian Allen. I went to the dub poetry jam off based on the hype of how amazing she was, and I’m glad I went, my body was feeling a li’l tired around half way through but I made the effort to listen intently to all her poems ’cause there so much wisdom to gain from older speaking poets. Every time I hear a poem it never ceases to amaze me how much one can move me, if poetry wasn’t in my life, I’d be a completely different person and I know it. After the show we headed to a li’l establishment called The Wise Hall which was one of the venues for the competition and every body met there for some late-night drinks before the competition for the next day. At around 2 am, everybody arrived home, and eventually got few hours of sleep.