Channeling your Inner Legend
Channeling your Inner Legend is a private workshop series currently delivered in middle schools and high schools within the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board and Ottawa Catholic School Board. This program aims to empower youth, amplify the voices of young people in Ottawa, and foster a greater sense of community through the transformative acts of writing and performance.
At ULPC, we believe that young people deserve to have supportive spaces to express themselves, grow their voices, and explore and celebrate their identities. Our teaching artists demonstrate how spoken word poetry can speak to today’s society, while emphasizing the importance of each student’s individual and unique voice. Through guided workshops, students learn how to share space with each other, listen to each other’s stories and experiences, and hold space for difference, while strengthening their knowledge of self.
Providing outlets for personal expression contributes to safer and healthier communities and relationships. We hope that this work will encourage the students to build and foster a culture of compassion and empathy within themselves, and in turn, their wider school communities.
Workshops can be administered as in-class programming or in drop-in format at lunch or after school.
Truth to Power
Truth to Power is a public writing and performance workshop series on wellness through the lens of community, solidarity, advocacy, and activism. Each workshop is led by an invited professional spoken word artist and explores how creative expression and spoken word poetry can be channeled as a means of enacting change, fostering dialogue, and disrupting systems of power and oppression. This program is rooted in the recognition that wellness is not a solitary pursuit, and true healing becomes possible when we link our personal stories to larger movements for justice and liberation.
Each workshop creates a brave space where writers and performers can examine the intersections between wellness and collective liberation. Whether you are an activist seeking to integrate wellness into your advocacy work, a writer or artist interested in the political dimensions of personal narrative, or someone just beginning to explore how your personal experiences connect to broader systems and social realities, Truth to Power invites you to discover how your voice can be an instrument of both personal healing and social transformation. In doing so, we are reminded that our stories have the power to ripple outward and inspire broader social change.
Truth to Power is delivered both as a public series, and is bookable for private, custom workshops.
Education Coordinators
King Kimbit
King Kimbit is a literary Hip-Hop artist born and raised on unceded Algonquin territory (Ottawa), passionate about empowering youth, community care, and sharing love through writing, reciting, and the abolition of punitive, carceral institutions.
King has performed solo and as part of ensembles in music and theatre across Turtle Island, Jamaica, and Vietnam. In 2017 King released her debut album Life Lessons Poetically, a collection of musical poetry in collaboration with artists locally and abroad. She is currently creating her sophomore album, Healing Trauma From The Projects.
Since 2018, she has teamed up with Jo-Anne Bryan, Carmelle Cachero, and Jordan Samonas, as a writer and the vocalist of their group, Speaking Vibrations. That year, King co-founded Cap City Cyphers (CCC), a space for rappers and singers to learn and develop improvisational skills and build community. Since then, CCC has partnered with organizations local and abroad to promote community through music.
Khaleefa Hamdan
Khaleefa ‘Apollo the Child’ Hamdan is a spoken word poet, hip hop artist, former radio host, youth worker and is the former co director of the Urban Legends Poetry Collective. Apollo created the free after school youth writing program Youth Speak with the Ottawa Public Library. His cinepoem ‘My Hero Drives a Cab’ was featured on Button Poetry and he was part of the CBC documentary ‘In Their Words’. Apollo has represented Ottawa a total of 9 times nationally. Apollo is one half of the hip hop funk duo Funky Colours and he continues to be an active part of the art scene as he continues to mentor and spread positivity.
Book us!
Looking to bring the transformative power of spoken word into your classroom, organization, or community? Get in touch to book a workshop, performance, or artist talk tailored to your needs.
Urban Legends Poetry Collective 