Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer
Poet Abebe. - CONTRIBUTED
WITH POET and musician M'Bala co-hosting, along with Tomlin Ellis, Tuesday night's September meeting of the Poetry Society of Jamaica at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts was well attended, despite heavy rain during the day.
There were prizes of the 'fruitical' kind for the MPL (Most Poetic Line), for which six poets read one poem each, as well as a pair of poems from Dingo and Abebe Payne heading down the home stretch of a gathering where there was not a featured guest, as is customary.
Before M'Bala tapped out the theme song for the MPL contest on a xylophone, Barry observed the practices of a certain international lending organisation with "leaving me with empty vault/some say It's Manley's Fault". T'Mani, O'neil, Theo, Joan, Black X and Daniel delivered their lines for the contest, the audience getting involved as a volunteer wrote down what was deemed the most poetic line from each piece. The winner, based on the applause of the audience as each person's line was read, turned out to be O'neil with "the burnt out candle that has never been lit", and he was handed a black plastic bag in which globular impressions looking suspiciously like fruit made an impression.
SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE
There was something for all the entrants, though, as well as the volunteer scribe, consisting mainly of laminated poetry posters by Fitzroy 'Jagga' Cole. And Cole himself, complete with his trademark cry of 'viva!', previewed material from his upcoming book, currently with the printers.
The night's poetic fare consisted of tongue and mind twisters from Ras Rodd ("half-way house we live in/equilibrium in thought") and 'Lyrics' from Derrick Clarke, a fourth-former at Excelsior High School, whose piece went out to "all a de man who fin' it hard to get a girl". "Mek sure yu have a pack a breath mint/mek sure yu breath no stink," he advised, to applause and laughter. Ganja rolled out rapid rhymes and Purifier, playing his guitar, stepped out of the poetry framework into song with 'Bus Outa Dis'.
After Ishion's image-laden 'Woodcutter', Ellis asked him how many times he had reworked and rewritten the poem. It turned out to be four, and it is not yet complete, and Ellis underscored the need to revisit material to the people gathered.
There were cheers for one young man who said "we kill freak a road/but we love see mama man inna play" as well as chastising those who "nyam meat a night/tun vegetarian a day". And there was an explosion of applause when he said "shark kill sardine/but two a dem a fish!"
The trio of Lynch, Sage and X, as LSX, was led off by Sage, who demanded "a wonda who mek da wall yah?/whe yu have a hide behin' dis 10-foot wall?"
Lynch looked at time with "I dream of the years ahead of us/grandma past/mama present/an de youths future", while X declared "Jr. Gong a Half-Way Tree/but me a Spanish Town."
With the night drawing to a close, Dingo observed that "the ghetto is not a physical place" in 'Jamaica Land We Love', as well as expanding on the "blouse and skirt vibe" of Peaches, who would "tek me foot in har lap/an' massage me soul".
Abebe Payne took a beautiful look at time in 'Forever Now', where "bird sing song and water gush out a rhythm". He warned that the next one was "a little bit violent" and proceeded to put on the hurt on homosexuality, to the vociferous delight of many present, complete with caustic observations on the 'psycho-analyst'
And the night was capped off by a young man who indulged in word play in which democracy was repeated, gradually transforming each time until it became 'dem a crazy' and crackers became carcass.
