Arts

For most amateur writers, recognition by means of publication in a local paper or a regional collection would suffice, but for second-year Carleton student Bardia Sinaee, a national print publication will do just fine.

With a poem entitled Viral Ads Attatched to E-mails From My Accountant as Indicative of My Dwindling Financial Situation, Sinaee's work was acknowledged and accepted for publication with The Feathertale Review, a magazine available nationwide at stores such as Chapters.

At the Great Canadian Theatre Company on Wellington Street in Westboro, it’s opening night and the haze machine sets the mood for a full house waiting to be bombarded with the hip-hop musical stylings of Chris Craddock and Nathan Cuckow.

Dressed in white, with matching pink sweatbands and choice headgear — a backwards pink trucker hat for Craddock and a pink fedora for Cuckow — the two dance, gyrate and rap a heavy and hilarious story of “star crossed lovers” for Bash’d!,billed as a “gay rap opera.”

The Charlatan (TC): How did you first get into slam poetry?

Chris Tse (CT):I started getting into spoken word when I was in high school but I didn’t start doing it seriously until last year. . . .I went to a hip-hop show and they promoted a poetry slam.

TC:How do you feel you have developed as a slam poet since starting back up last year?

Four years ago, local band Good2Go released its pop-punk song, “O-Train.” The lyrics, as one can imagine, instruct the listener to “get on the O-Train.” Last month, the band released a music video for this upbeat track. 

Inspiration can come from anywhere, and for a 15-year-old Ash Buchholz that meant 10,000 sweaty bodies moving to drum and bass in an event centre near Toronto.