Dana I.D. Matthews is in Vancouver representing London at the first ever Canadian Indie Slam at the VIPF. I’ll be posting his adventures here.

Day 1.
1st plane ride back was good but no leg space. I was all the way at the front, window seat, blew my mind for awhile the patterns the clouds can make and the shades of color on the ground, it made me feel small and insignificant in a good and humble way if that makes any sense.

The first thing you notice about Vancouver is the gorgeous mountain, even in the heart of the city downtown the view never ceases to amaze me. I think taking up mountain climbing would be cool!, I reached my hostel called Samesun Backpackers, checked in, put my stuff on my bed and left, it was nice enough, but honestly I didn’t care much about where I was staying. I went for lunch with Perforce, Open Secret and Hyphadelik; they told me about their crazy night before, when cabs wouldn’t take them late at night out of fear of a group of darker skinned men. I was very disappointed, but it’s not like it hasn’t happened to me before so I understand. Afterwards we met up with Johnny Mcrea, Megan Ann Ward, and a handful or more other poets from around Canada at Johnny’s house. Since he lives here in Vancouver, he’s been kind enough to let me crash at his place for free along with like 7 other poets! Solid guy.

At early registration we met up with more poets and talked there for quite some time, a lot of love in abundance I must say, it never ceases to warm me up when you see so many good people being good to each other almost all the time. Very refreshing to see.

We were at the Rio Theatre where Vancouver had their slam finals for the team….it was amazing!!, it was 3 minute poems and then 1 minute poems then another 3, the judging was remarkably consistent as well. Got to hear Canada’s youth slam champ perform a poem about his mother which was also incredible, the infamous mike McGee and C.R. Avery featured and performed which was a great surprise…
The third and final round was epic. It was clear to me that the poets saved their best for last, ’cause everyone went hard, performances were very well done, the Van team was announced. The winner of the whole slam season was a 19 year old woman–youngest champion ever, pretty cool! Olivia B was her name, gotta watch out for her. After the show all the poets migrated to a nice lil bar called the brick house, it was a nice lil establishment, the poets mingled, and shared awesome conversations about the greatest topics, so many I couldn’t even begin to explain. At the end of the night after everybody headed back and I headed to Johnny’s, where I couldn’t help but think of how blessed I was, cursed in the way of my thinking, but blessed in the way that so many good and talented people like being around me.