A soft purple light engulfed poet Nonso Morah on the SAW Centre stage just before she performed her last piece of the showcase.
“I am who I am because people were willing to fight, to die, to lose themselves to make sure that there is a generation to come,” she said. “Me writing is honouring that.”
The In Our Tongues reading and art series returned for its first event since June 2023 to showcase poetry, comedy and music performances in celebration of Black History Month at Club SAW on Feb. 11.
The evening featured performances from award-winning genre-bender Grey Brisson, poet and advocate Nonso Morah, stand-up comedian Dawn Xanklin and poet and translator Darby Minott Bradford.
Shery Alexander Heinis, In Our Tongue’s co-founder and executive director, said the series highlights the work of underrepresented artists in Ottawa with a focus on poets and writers.
“As a page poet and writer, I found representation was lacking in the literary spaces I frequented,” she said. “When we established In Our Tongues, what we wanted was to provide a safe place particularly for Black, Indigenous and racialized artists to present their art, and where they could be their authentic selves.”
The series also features the work of “those with different abilities, across the gender spectrum, and from both English and French-speaking communities,” according to the In Our Tongues website.
The non-profit holds performance events throughout the year, celebrating Black History Month, Asian Heritage Month in May and National Indigenous History Month in June.
Spoken-word poet Morah’s work explored themes of self-discovery and Afrocentrism. In her performance, she connected with the crowd through her experiences as a second-generation Nigerian-Canadian.
“I think many of us find ourselves feeling borderless at times,” she said. “As though we exist in one space, and know our spirits and our souls traverse others in ways others’ can’t.”
Morah said she finds inspiration in her daily life from the stories she hears from people she meets.
“I’ve been meeting a lot of new people in my life these days,” said Morah, who also works as a political staffer in the Senate of Canada. “[I’m] trying my best to connect with everything around me as presently as possible.”
“I think the best writers are those who know as much as possible but are still open to accepting that they don’t know anything at all.”
Heinis said the volunteers for In Our Tongues were excited to return to programming after the hiatus attributed to “personal issues.”
“It’s truly amazing to be able to create this,” said Sridaya Srivatsan, the series’ program director.
Srivatsan lives in Toronto, but travelled to Ottawa to host the event.
“I always make it back for this, because In Our Tongues creates such a necessary pocket in Ottawa.”
While the work of running an arts series can be gruelling, Heinis said being able to connect and uplift artists is a rewarding experience.
“As artists we need to bind together, we need to collaborate and we need to support each other,” Heinis said.
She said finding artists to feature in the series is all about collaboration. In Our Tongues works with local arts and literary community organizations to recognize creators that have been making waves in their artistic spaces.
“Given the national and international space that we are operating in, it’s really important for us at In Our Tongues to be there right now supporting our artists,” she said. “Especially underrepresented and under-resourced artists.”
Featured image by Cassie Hartmann/The Charlatan.
