Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer

With the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in post-'Dean' darkness, the monthly fellowship of the Poetry Society of Jamaica was shifted to the grounds of the nearby Little Theatre, Tom Redcam Avenue, on Tuesday night.

The result was a small gathering at the side of the theatre, some persons perched on the flat tops of round, blue concrete posts while others sat on chairs to form a loose circle from which comment flowed freely throughout the evening.

And, with much fewer persons present than usual, there were multiple poems from a few persons, including Natalie Grant, who started with 'Mechanics' ("only the screws remain now, I watch them screw others"). She did not read her other poems for the night, as others took up the task, but not before Angena Thomas did 'Black Diamond', her talent piece in the recent Miss Jamaica World 2007 contest.

Déjà vu

Daniel Brooks went back to his third-form high-school days with 'Journey', which ended with reference to "blood that would create Starliners out of those same ships and take us back to life", before Kashka read a Natalie Grant poem which spoke of "a smooth intonation, a meeting of tone and tune". Wendy McLean took on a romantic piece from Grant, which took writer and reader "over the rainbow like Dorothy, singing in the rain like Fred Astaire".

It was a double from writer and reader, as 'Déjà Vu' followed, which concluded "these lines I have written them before, the ghost of poems past, déjà vu".

Marcel Logan, revisiting the Poetry Society's fellowship after a three-year absence, did a triple in succession, beginning with 'Endless Under', continuing with 'Dazed' ("if this is love, then only oceans drown more") and closing with 'Dragonfly', which observed a visitor seeing Jamaica as a Third-World country.

Racquel's play on words beginning with 'mis' and inter-weaving of 'dictionary' and 'dictation' went over well before Brooks delivered 'Mini Bus', the final poem of the evening, which sparked extensive discussion of the development of dialect and dub poetry before the small gathering broke up.