Word Strong

By Ms. Lorraine Brown

LCS students were so fortunate on Friday, January 7 to have the amazingly talented Toronto slam poet, Lara Bozabalian, facilitate a writing workshop from 6:30 - 8:00 in the Bryan Jones Theatre. Lara, whose poetry and prose has been published in literary journals and two literary anthologies, is also the author of four chapbooks. She performed three poems from her first full-length collection, The Cartographer's Skin, at the workshop.

It was obvious from the first moment on stage that Lara is as talented a writer as she is performer. As a member of the Toronto Poetry Slam Team, Lara has performed in many Canadian slam festivals and has represented Toronto at the American National Poetry Slam.

She performed three of her slam poems: "Alarm Clocks," "The Cost," and "The Music Box." Each poem she performed at the workshop was linked to a focused writing activity. We embraced the opportunity to write in silence and then to share a line, a word, an image with others. Lara spoke passionately about the importance of the distillation process of writing. A poem comes together after a great deal of writing and re-writing. She eloquently explained, "writing a poem is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle." We find a word, a phrase, an idea that fits perfectly with something already written. Her excitement for the process of distillation infected all of us and inspired us to go home and write some more!

If you missed the workshop and wish you had been there, you can still catch Lara on stage this winter. On January 31, she will be competing in the Women of The World Qualifying Slam and will be performing at Toronto's Harbourfront on March 31 as part of FemCab 2011.