Hot Damn! It’s A Queer Slam gave Queen W an exciting taste of its upcoming 6th season with Cass Myers’ raw yet polished feature performance at an open stage show as part of the vital Bricks & Glitter Festival. The event was at the cozy Beaver – close to Dufferin on Queen W. By the time the show started the packed house had people spilling out into the street.
Robert Molloy hosted the show with contagious enthusiasm and kept things moving along while allowing many of the open stagers time to do two (!) pieces. The poets covered a wide range of rage, relationship fun and/or horror (sometimes one can’t tell the difference), political anger & even a few sweetly sexy pieces.
Random lines from those open stagers: if Doug Ford heard you play the piano would he change his mind – whispers turn into wishing wells – harness hope without harm – I don’t remember starting this fund for white-girl feminists – this is my conversation yet it somehow revolves around you – my sexuality is a case of death more painful than a tumour – you want me to talk in my accent – her tone tells me queerness + transgender doesn’t add up – I cry myself a wishing well – a beach is lonely most of the time – his lips hooked into a smile – google spits back ‘still intact’ – that everything is okay is the biggest lie we told each other – your silence calls to me from the floorboards – there are no accidental suicides – it was the summer I had words for the rage I felt
After a brief break for everyone to get a libation and catch their breath before feature Cass Myers, a national spoken word poetry slam champion, hit the stage with a powerful paper set – all of the pieces were recent & still being worked on but came across polished.The pieces covered race, relationships, political frustration & finding emotion stability. The writing was fresh, inventive, inviting & drew the listeners to examine their own needs.
Random lines: the sun’s rubber stamp – in the summer the most faceable parts of me are whitest parts – in the summer we can’t pass – Lake Baptiste ungenders me – our edge the only scenery – what is a boarder but a map folded along estuaries – boudoir in a white man’s gaze – body chronic crumple crackle – fibonacci fiddleheads – self-portrait as an oyster – survival of the numbest – the fraternal twins of lust & grief – pain is a soundless meat cleaver – the gasoline of truth on their velvet.
Hot Damn! It’s A Queer Slam kicks off it Sixth Season Sept 24 at Buddies in Bad Times.
I did my Hot Damn! duty with a brief outline of the amazing growth of the series and its connection to Capturing Fire. A moment of calm that didn’t show things down at all. I did the requisite 2 (!) pieces on of which was:
Hidden Heart
all I am hiding
are my emotions
really
no I don’t have anything
in my hands
up my sleeve
I didn’t put anything
where you couldn’t find it
everything is out in the open
what good would it do
to hide your shoes
so you can’t leave
hide your underwear
so you can’t dressed
hide the towels so
you can only dry off
between the sheets
with me
me
who has nothing to hide
except my feelings
or rather my lack of them
though you claim
my claim of lack of feelings
is actually hiding something
because my door is so open to you
because I have made a place
for you my life
you even have your own tooth brush here
it is out in the open too
see nothing is hidden
really
except how I feel
which I can’t reveal
until you open up
to tell me what you have hidden
in your heart
every Tuesday 2019
September
17 – Shaw Festival – Sex (Mae West)
22 – Stratford Festival – Little Shop Of Horrors
Tuesday 24 – Hot Damn! It’s Queer Slam – Buddies and Bad Times Theatre
October
15 – Stratford Festival – The Crucible
November
7 – Hot Damn! It’s Queer Slam – Buddies and Bad Times Theatre
December
The Secret Handshake Gallery – 
feature – date TBA
January
23 – Hot Damn! It’s Queer Slam – Buddies and Bad Times Theatre
March
March 5 – Hot Damn! It’s Queer Slam – Buddies and Bad Times Theatre
April
April 3 – Hot Damn! It’s Queer Slam – Season 6 finales Buddies andBbad Times Theatre
June – Capturing Fire 2020 – Washington D.C. 
capfireslam.org
Hey! Or you can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee in Washington at 2020’s capfireslam.org – sweet, eh? paypal.me/TOpoet
