By Tanya Batson, Staff Reporter
Connie Bell hosts 'Root Cause', the poetry competition at the Weekenz Bar and Bistro, Constant Spring Road, St Andrew. - Contributed
ON TUESDAY night, not even a disturbance in the electricity supply could stem the entertainment at 'Root Cause', a poetry competition which takes place at Weekenz Bar and Bistro on Constant Spring Road, St Andrew. The competition began in early March and ends in May.
The power went just after midnight but the last of the night's contestants had already left the stage and the final guest performer, master drummer Carrot Jarrett, had taken the stage.
Jarrett was initially accompanied by rhythms selected by Mutabaruka on his Black Music sound. His first piece had also been used to complement the poetry of Kayon Taylor and the graceful moves of Lisa O'Gilvie.
Shortly after the marriage of dance, poetry and drumming ended, however, the electricity went. When it did, silence descended on Weekenz as talking ceased and Jarrett stopped playing. "What yuh stop playing fah?" one patron demanded to know seconds later.
Taking this as his cue, Jarrett resumed drumming. The sound of the drums echoed through the darkened night. The gleam of light from other parts of the city created a glow around the surroundings, and a few stars twinkled in the night sky.
The audience, some of whom lounged at the bar while others spread out on the lawn before the stage, could hardly make out the drummer but they certainly could feel his beat. He was soon joined by rhythmic yells.
Taylor soon returned to the stage and seated herself at one of the drums to add to the music. Another element was soon added when Connie Bell, who hosts Root Cause, added her voice in a rhythmic chanting. She demonstrated that she possesses very powerful lungs, as her voice carried clearly across the grounds. However, she was unable to sustain the chants as not long after her voice began to fade and grow hoarse. Not willing to lose the mood, however, Bell encouraged the audience to clap along to Jarrett's drumming. They eagerly joined in, often tempering their clapping to match the changes in Jarrett's drumming.
Neto Meeks, the sixth winner since the start of the competition, was then announced. Meeks, who delivered fast-moving lines bouncing off a reggae rhythm, will join Garfield Thompson, Caroline Stephenson, Sabriya, Ricardo Barrett, Simone Bryan, and Christopher Gordon in the grand finals.
As such, despite the announcement of time for open microphone, most of the patrons assumed the night was over. As they started to make their way home, the electricity returned.
Earlier on, the audience had also been graced with a performance by Oku Onoura, one of the fathers of dub poetry. Onoura performed some hard lines in four poems. Demonstrating wonderful cadence he delivered I Want To Write A Poem, Trouble, Education and Reflection in Red. Reflection in Red, though a commentary on Jamaica's social injustices, was aimed at the greater social injustice now taking place in Iraq. Before starting the poem, he commented, "If yuh did expec' better from Bush, den cho..."
In a release, the organisers of Root Cause stated that they want to remove the stigma of poets being 'elitist, eccentric, wannabes'. On Tuesday night, they demontrated that with or without the light they will continue to allow poets to 'rush di mic'.
