Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer

Abebe Payne during a recent performance. - Contributed

When Abebe Payne delivered his trio of poems at RedBones the Blues Café recently, the substantial audience which turned out for the 7th Annual Writers' Awards was quiet as they listened attentively throughout.

And, there was a lot to listen to as Payne played on, but not with, words, starting out with an appeal to the police that, "Hey Babylon, de I know I am/de I brother man?" but soon followed with the search complaint "me feel you please/to have man a hol' position". "No prey pon yu sister, pray fi yu sister," Payne said in the poem's refrain.

He explored 'Forever Now' and figuratively held on to 'Joy' to end, the audience applauding as he missed the last lines and wrapped up with a smiling goodbye.

Exploration of the death

Payne's measured approach was different from that of Fuzion, who closed his set of emphatically delivered poems with an exploration of the death of the young lady who was thought to have died from dancing, saying "dutty wine dis/dutty wine dat/now dutty grave wid dutty dirt pon top", the audience breaking into appreciative laughter at points.

In the end, it was Payne who took the top prize of $2,500, with Fuzion earning himself lunch for two at RedBones as first runner-up and Akinsanya, who ended his set with 'Spectacular Senorita', taking home a bottle of wine as second runner-up. There was another prize for Fuzion, though, as his 'Mirror Mirror', a poem that took a humorous look at the practice of skin bleaching, was named 'Poem of the Year', earning him $2,500.

Latoya Saunders, Mo'Scherrie, Sage, Iyunda and Ganja completed the field of eight writers, selected from the poets who performed at RedBones' monthly 'Evening of Contemporary Literature.' They were assessed on originality (45 per cent), content (30 per cent) and performance (25 per cent).

Gina Rey Forrest, who delivered the assessment of judges: Trevor Rhone, Karen Carpenter, Carolyn Cooper and herself, said "we were a little disappointed that the women were not very effective. Simplicity of language speaks."

"Some of the performances were too loud," she said. In addition, for some "your poem was not personal to you, so it was not personal to anyone else".

The evening's guests were Max, a young man from the United States who impressed with 'A Vision' and 'My Child' ("I was when God punished us for our blind faith and we responded with blind faith") and Charlie Bobos, who declared 'We Love Poetry' and encouraged 'Use Your Experience and Get Stronger'.