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Hosted by Cap City Cyphers in Ottawa.

Urban Legends Poetry Slams are back for a new season! We invite you to join us for our Season Opener featuring Just Jamaal ThePoet.

📅 Friday, October 16, 2026 📍 Rooster's Coffeehouse, Carleton University ⏰ Doors 7:30PM | Show 8:00PM 💵 Tickets at the door, $15 (suggested donation; no one turned away due to lack of funds)

Sign up for the open mic and slam at the door. Poets who sign up to perform are not required to buy a ticket.

Accessibility: Step-free access. Accessible and inclusive washrooms. Alcohol-free space. Face masks available as needed. Pay-What-You-Decide tickets.

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We are delighted to open our 17th season honouring our roots by taking it back to Carleton campus and featuring one of our previous stewards, Just Jamaal ThePoet.

Jamaal Amir Akbari, also known as JustJamaal ThePoet or JAAWORD, is an award-winning poet, performer, songwriter, recording artist, arts educator, mentor and creative entrepreneur. Ottawa’s 2017–2019 Poet Laureate, Jamaal has spent more than two decades using poetry and performance as tools for storytelling, education, mentorship and community building. His work as an artist educator earned him the Ontario Arts Foundation’s Outstanding Artist Educator Award in 2016, and he served as Carleton University’s Artist-in-Residence from 2019–2020.

Jamaal’s relationship with Urban Legends Poetry Collective reaches back more than a decade. For two seasons, from 2012 to 2013, he served as a director of the collective alongside poet Sense-Say, helping to cultivate Ottawa’s spoken word community and develop emerging voices. In 2013, he also became an Urban Legends Poetry Slam Champion.

His recent literary work includes CHAMBERS, his debut collection of 36 poems, and Brave 2 Be, a children’s book exploring identity, culture, vulnerability and transformation. He is currently expanding his work in music through CHAMBERS: The Spoken Word Album and his forthcoming hip-hop project NODEMO.

Whether on the page, stage, in the studio or classroom, Jamaal’s work moves through Black heritage, emotional growth, fatherhood, identity and the human condition. Based in rural Ottawa, he continues to perform, teach, mentor and create while helping the next generation of artists find their voices and their place on the stage.