Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
AKINSANYA AND African delivered verse to a good reception at the latest month-end edition of poetry at Redbones the Blues Café in New Kingston, which had 'brawta' from Mah and Stephen, as well as De I Am.
Akinsanya, a member of the Tuff Tuff Triangle poetry group, was up first and began an extended presentation with a dub that was written for JAMAL (the Jamaica Adult Literacy programme). "Ignorance enslave/ knowledge liberate" he began, the rhythm of the piece that encouraged learning being immediately clear "The blackboard is not your enemy," Akinsanya encouraged.
"If one should ask me how I see God, I would say through the womb of my mother," he said, doing a poem in praise of black women.
Akinsanya urged all to "do something for today's youth", then chided common slang by asking "where is my nigger at?"
A trio of poems around relationships, one giving a particular woman a 'Thumbs Up', preceded an ode to marijuana, done in dub style, Akinsanya closing his eyes and rocking to the rhythm of the poem as he declared "herb is not a drug, is vegetable matter".
REBEL CHILDREN
"This is for the spiritually, physically and economically oppressed people," Akinsanya said, urging "rebel children rebel/tell the gods in heaven there is no water in the well". He ended with a return to the women, complimenting them with "Black woman/pretty like flowers/Black man need her every hour".
African's first poem was an introductory piece of sorts, requesting all to "listen to these sounds/unlike any other sounds/bouncing like basketballs/on private and public compounds".
He went on to a poem that was written "about three, four months ago, when I heard that a friend of mine died in the east". The poem went through issues of loss, before ending "the future wasn't for you to see/Now I am not sure about me".
He surrendered to a woman poetically ("woman you pull me in/and my masculinity naturally gives in"), looked at the two sides of bad weather ("the rain is falling/mudding up river banks/some are complaining/the wise ones giving thanks") and the need to "write some poems/that are more than poems".
The Eve of Christmas Eve, Let It Be Known and a self-definition as an "intellect poet" followed, before African ended with My People, which encouraged black people to "contribute positively to your race/in another you have no space".
That was the end of the night's official programme, but there was an extra serving from Mah and Stephen, the latter playing the harmonica as Mah asked: "You say you like the ghetto/but do you really like the ghetto?" And De I Am sealed the matter with the question "Oh Mister Buck Master/Is it your blood the poor will have to shed sah?"
