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Oni Joseph dodged a bullet Tuesday evening, and not in the poetic sense.

Better known as Oni The Haitian Sensation, the “slam poetry” champ was in her bedroom in the south end of Ottawa when a .45-calibre bullet flew by her head — so close, she said it left a powdered, “iridescent” residue on her forehead and grazed her son’s lower leg.

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The bullet then deflected off a door frame, dented a piece of drywall and came to rest at the top of the carpeted stairs, below a map of Swaziland.

“I couldn’t believe it,” she said Wednesday, still shaken and tired from going without sleep all night. “It more than frightened me. It was really traumatic.”

Joseph, 45, said she was in her second-floor bedroom at about 10:45 p.m., looking for materials connected to an online course for her son, Toussaint, 20.

Just as he came in the room, she began to hear a series of “popping” sounds, then something much louder, like a window shattering, then air rushing by her face. Pretty soon, she was “half on the ground” and reaching for her phone to call 911.