When the stanzas had settled and the four judges had calculated at RedBones the Blues Café last Tuesday evening, there was not one 'Poet of The Year'.

There were two, as Shelly-Ann Harris and Andrew 'Osakwe' Burton tied for top position in the sixth staging of the Braemar Road, New Kingston, annual poetry contest.

Third was Gangungeh Negvadye, with the 'Poem of the Year' going to Phinneas Born Yah for his bilingual Prayers.

The other two entrants in the Awards contest, culled from the month-end poetry readings at RedBones, were Sister Melva Ramcharan and Duane Francis.

It was not only a contest, however, as the evening was dedicated to poet Gwyneth Barber-Wood, who died recently. Millicent 'Toni' Graham read Barber-Wood's Garden of Forgetting, Magnolia and Conversation with the Wind, while Connie Bell sang Many Rivers To Cross.

Assessed the entries

With each writer being given 15 minutes to do a maximum of three poems, judges Trevor Rhone, Raymond Mair, Gina-Rey Forrest and Karen Carpenter assessed the entries on originality, context and performance. There was not much of the last from the first two poets and, coincidentally, winners, Harris and Burton standing at the lectern to deliver their work. Harris went with Unfaithful, Entry One in her 'Dirty Mirror' series and a Prodigal Diaspora, while Burton's Loveable related how "the subway burrows from borough to borough" before he closed with Admirer.

Francis left the podium to stand front and centre and delivered Let Me Be, Guns and the humorous Bring Them Back, while Ramcharan was the only poet on the night to use extensive introductions as well as recorded music to accompany one poem, an untitled love piece.

Phinneas' Prayer was his only poem for the night, Forest saying that the judges would have liked to hear more from him when she was announcing the winners.

Starting with ancient Hebrew and then going into English with "it has been 10 years to this day since my first baby died... I already know life goes on, so don't tell me life goes on", clasping his hands on the prayerful section.

Nevadye moved around on stage, speaking forcefully, rod in left hand as he expressed suffering. He continued in the same performance vein with Dem No Teach We Nutten Bout Marcus and Mr. Money Cuffe, not much pause coming between poems.

- M.C.