Since the beginning of February, poet/spoken-word artist Möe Clark has been performing and collaborating in an unusual venue: Westmount High. She is the Poet-in-Residence there, working with students on their own pieces and performances, teaching them what it means to be an artist and introducing them to the tools of the trade.

The program, a collaboration between the Foundation for Public Poetry, Westmount High School and the school’s Alumnae Association, has had great results. According to Westmount High English teacher Ryan Ruddick: “She’s really inspired the school, let the teachers know what spoken word is and inspired the kids who thought that poetry was for someone else.”

Clark, not the first person who comes to mind when one thinks “poet,” was seen as the best fit for the job because she has a contemporary, inter-disciplinary style that combines elements of hip hop, jazz and political spoken word poetry. It’s a style that really hits home with the students already well versed in spoken-word forms and hip hop culture.

The Poet-In-Residence program is allowing both students and the artist an opportunity to explore performance and the spoken word. For the duration of her tenure at Westmount High, Clark has teamed up with the school’s Hip Hop and Spoken Word Collective and a few other interested and dedicated students. They meet twice a week to work on the students’ poetry and performances.

For Clark it’s about sharing her own creative process of writing, editing, rehearsing, recording and performance with the students. She gives them feedback and is teaching them how to use looping pedals and recording technology. “It’s really amazing to see how talented they are! They’re listening, they’re aware” – and they are stepping up.

“There’s this one kid Daniel who’s writing a piece a week – really coming out with stuff,” Clark says with enthusiasm. “He’s inspired by hip hop but finding ways to fuse it with his own story. He came in one day: ‘Miss! Miss! I have this idea…’” It quickly became a collaborative effort. “He played the Biggie Small’s (The Notorious B.I.G.) riff that inspired him and so we made a loop of that, and this other kid started doing a beat box. Before you know it he’s standing up at the podium performing his work.”

According to Clark this is really about giving them the tools and, more than just learning about looping stations and recording technology, this includes the study of the mechanics and conventions of poetry: alliteration and rhymes, the way that words and sounds make their own music. Clark says the experience has been a breath of fresh air. “I get to expose them to contemporary forms. I let the teachers teach them about Shakespeare.”

For Clark this is an opportunity not only to work on an on-going basis with the students of Westmount High but gives her the chance and space to work on her own performance and poetry. They’ve given her a desk in the basement and the residency gives her financial support so that she can work on her own performance art. She will be performing on March 13th at the MAI Interdisciplinary Levier on Art and the Economies of Exploitation: How Many Slaves Do You Own? as part of the three-day event.

The entire program has been funded by the Foundation for Public Poetry and the efforts of Jack Locke, the organization’s Poet-in-Chief. The project was conceived last April as a way to celebrate the 75th birthday of Westmount High’s most prestigious poet alumnus: Leonard Cohen. Funds were raised through the sale of the Foundation’s recently published book “Leonard Cohen You’re Our Man” in which 75 poets from 12 countries submitted work in honour of Leonard Cohen. The book was published thanks to a Friesen’s Corporation sponsorship and is available on line at: www.public.wordpress.com and at Diamond Bookstore on Sherbrooke St.

Check out Möe Clark doing her thing on YouTube.

Tagged as: Dub, Leonard Cohen, Spoken Word, Westmount High