To call it “girl power” wouldn’t really do it justice.

But there was definitely something powerful hanging in the atmosphere last Saturday night at Ottawa’s first Women’s Slam Championship.

To be sure, it was a night about women. The line-up featured a handpicked selection of Ottawa’s finest female poets. The poetry was full of empowering messages passed from sister to sister. Even the music fit the theme — DJ Prufrock spun an all-girl soundtrack featuring legends like Lauryn Hill.

But the slam went beyond a campy, Spice Girl-esque notion of female solidarity.

It was more about the poetic community women have helped shape here in Ottawa: a vibrant and diverse scene that puts our city on the map in Canadian spoken word.

The theatre at Arts Court was packed as the slam began. Eager audience members spilled onto the front of the stage and squished into the staircase (a big “no-no”, we would soon find out).

Apparently, Ottawa had been waiting for a women’s slam.

“When we announced it was going to happen, there was this sort of instant reaction of ‘it’s about time’,” Kate Hunt said in an interview after the show. Hunt works for VERSeFest, the Ottawa poetry festival that staged the women’s slam as a fundraiser with help from Capital Slam Slam Master Rusty Priske.

Soon, host Ruthanne Edward took to the stage to kick things off.

After a strong showing by sacrificial poet Mia Morgan, the name of the first competitor was randomly drawn from a hat. But it seemed more like fate that Sepideh was called up.

“God is a man, but mother nature is a woman,” the young poet proclaimed, launching the slam with a powerful piece comparing the destruction of the environment to the abuse women often face in our society.

Internet site reference: http://www.apt613.ca