By Mel Cooke, Freelance WriterWESTERN BUREAU:
THE WEEKLY poetry gathering at Weekenz Bar and Bistro on Constant Spring Road, St. Andrew, got off to a bright start in 2004.
A decent house was in attendance and the bonfire celebrating the first night of the full moon crackled at hostess Connie Bell's instructions to light it in honour of the 'nymph'. It seemed to be in tune with the night's proceedings somehow, as it blazed merrily for Steppa's urgent cries, bubbled warmly to Simone Bryan's work and, by the time the sole open mic performer came on, it had settled into a nearly out phase.
And it was just as well, as after the final extended poetry performance their was a mass exodus, as if by some silent signal.
It was Ms. Bell herself, though, who started off the performances, reading two poems as she waited for Sage to come to the microphone as announced. With no Sage appearing, Ms. Bell announced that Kerry Jo would read, "as we try to incorporate artistic discipline into artistic expression".
Kerry Jo was a delight. At all of about five feet tall she read with clarity and conviction, some of her pieces evolving from their beginnings into unexpected but not unrelated directions. "Passion, do you know what that means?" she started out, but words about sexual happenings grew into a challenge to take up issues, the poem blossoming on the lines "sex has defined our passion/but is that all we are passionate about?"
Similarly, I Have Been Here Before changed from a poem of ancestry ("my ancestors tell me I have been here before") into a piece about sexual betrayal.
"This is not a sex poem/this is not a love of you poem/this is my own mantra" Kerry Jo said in Lightning Rod, which ended on a climatic note both in words and delivery.
Mutabaruka gave Ziggy Marley's Got To Be True To Myself a spin, before Ms. Bell introduced "our delinquent guest poet, but we love him nonetheless". It was Sage and he was actually the first to read along to the crackle of the bonfire. He did not start out on a fiery note, though, but with Ocean, which began "there is just something about Black music, the way she plays".
Working with backing tracks Sage employed a very vehement delivery style, moving on to chant for "I Majesty, living light". Sage ended with I Am, I which he defined himself, ending with "I am Sage".
Sparks went up into the air even as Mutabaruka spun a beautiful interpretation of Natural Mystic. Steppa was next and, after his now customary cry of "lissen to Steppa!" he opened with Mother Earth, specially for his mother who was present.
Also using rhythms, Steppa was steady on the heavy basslines, as he continued with a poem which urged "pu dung de gun, mek it rus.
"There is a poem whe I waan bring forward. I no really use paper, but I no get fi study it et," Steppa said. Reading did not affect his performance, though, as Steppa put his voice and body into the reading, as he declared "my lan' is simply a tradin' pos'.
"By 2005 de school fee a go raise/an den de fia a go blaze," Steppa said in the long poem, covering globalisation issues among others, which the audience loved. "Koffi Annan/puppet man/Sponge Bob..." Steppa said to cheers.
After a tribute to This Woman Steppa finished up with Finance.
EXQUISITE MOMENT
Mutabaruka played Luciano's Sweep Over My Soul and Revelation by Abijah between poets, before Connie Bell brought on Simone Bryan, winner of last year's 'Rush De Mic' competition. There was an exquisite moment as Mutabaruka, who kept Revelation playing low throughout the introduction, brought up the last harmony of "a revelation" as Ms. Bryan stepped to the microphone.
Displaying excellent delivery and superb poise, she started out with a poem she wrote for someone she once cared about, referring in part to their relationship as a book, asking "does the tale of our characters no longer seem to our liking?". "Don't let me forget I loved you," Ms. Bryan ended, to whistles and whoops.
As the bonfire simmered down from its peak Simone Bryan stoked the poetic blaze, waxing lyrical and strong. She continued with No Poem or Love Song, which she had done in the competition she won, referring to "the beating the Native Americans wished they had delivered on Columbus..."
An angry poem - really angry poem - really, really angry poem entitled Glitch preceded her closing piece, Tribute To The Wounded.
Mutabaruka's selections included Wateralls before the final guests for the night, a grouping led off by Spirit followed by Ayunda, wrapped up the night's proceedings, as the bonfire went lower and lower, even as the full moon shone in all her 'nymphatic' glory over Weekenz.
