Poetic Release

By: Nadine Thomas-Brown


“Poetic Release” is so much more than poets pontificating about topics no one cares about. It is drums beating while clever women garbed in Nubian finery chant “yard style” about lovemaking and life, It’s about feet tapping as handsome young men sporting the latest gear sing over Karaoke tracks to their current flames. It is about free styling to any given beat, it’s about releasing all of your pent up thoughts through dance, commentary, poetry, spoken word, songs, music picked out on keyboards, maracas, tambourines… To be a part of this experience you need no talent just time and some energy to “release”.

“Poetic Release” is the brainchild of two performers who prefer anonymity but whose love of the arts saturates every aspect of their lives. On finding that there are not many spoken word venues they have decided to jump in and contribute to the spoken word scene and in doing so, channel the energy of venues which were once hopping and are now on permanent hiatus. Venues such as Jitters and Caripelago where “SpeakEasy” hostess extraordinaire, Krissy Luv held court and later passed the torch to the Ruff Cutz Crew who continued to host SpeakEasy at the now closed “Chippies” (Cafe Habana).

Café Habana is a sexy little Cuban eatery whose atmosphere makes it conducive to manipulation thereby anointing it the perfect spot for performers to release pent up talents. Take last Saturday for instance when starting from seven pm Bay Street literally echoed with the plaintive wails of poets some of whom found that their singing voices grated on no nerve endings here in the Cafe. It seemed for one moment in time that all judgmental thoughts had ceased and even the most horrific voices were beautiful in their honesty and lack of self consciousness. The poetry was intense and the themes varied from love to loss and even a little politics was humorously thrown in. Then it was time to freestyle.
Everyone was given the opportunity of making up lyrics to incredible syncopated drumming with a touch of hip hop thrown in. The crowd went wild as the host for the evening threw down the gauntlet by going into some inspired rap about her floetry. The challenge was then taken up by a young woman with admitted issues. She captivated the audience by venting her anger about her living situation a point which everyone seemed able to relate to and their heads bobbed in agreement at her rhythmic rant. Rap Artist Mif,f represented his brand of
cool as his lady nodded dreamily, seeming to feel the weight of his loaded words as they fell on receptive, appreciative ears. Poet Eric Rose thanked the audience for the food, thanked god for his Nubian princess while Sean Munnings reminded the ladies that he was not made of stone and in the same breath asked his girl friend lovingly and with great heat, to “Charo him”…Rolinda Pierre starred in her own macabre poem utilizing some serious acting skills to conjure the psychopathic nature of a jilted persona in one poem, while seducing the room with a soon to be released love chant in another…

By ten o’clock “Poetic Release” had climaxed but patrons hung around anyway greeting friends and chatting about how fat they felt from the lyrical feasting that had taken place. Some gluttons for lyricism voiced regret that “Poetic Release” was such that it would only be held every two weeks but nevertheless they promised to be back for more.

For more information about “Poetic Release” at Café Habana: email vibestress@yahoo.com

Adventures In Journalism

Adventures In Journalism part 1
By: Nadine Thomas Brown

How many prostitutes are there in Nassau? Where do they parade their wares? Do they have conventions, unions, vacations? Is there a retirement plan for elderly prostitutes? Do they have Pimps? Are clear heels the new call girl uniform? Why do they do it? These are just some of the questions I considered asking some of these independent “entrepreneurial young ladies of the night” if I found them. As it turned out the only thing I did learn is that their intrinsic radars- which seem to be able to detect intrepid ambitious journalists from miles away- enables them to either blend into the gritty streets which they have been rumored to traffic or simply disappear at the drop of a hat.

It is ten pm and my friend Bodine and I are on the prowl for prostitutes. This is my first time (tongue in cheek) so I pack my charm, my wit and my carefree spirit in with my camera and tape recorder and strap myself into my friend’s passenger seat in preparation for our search. Our friend Robert is attending classes till 10:30 and will not be joining us as planned. I am a little disappointed because I feel that with a guy in the car we would probably get the ladies to approach the car more readily- go figure! Still we are both starved for adventure and the night awaits us.Tw minutes into our search the phone rings and it is Bodine’s pesky (according to her) little sister. She needs a ride home. We are on the Cable Beach Strip and she needs a ride all the way across town into the Eastern District. Bodine and I consult and decide that we have more than enough time to find prostitutes.After all they are ladies of the “night”. We take the scenic route and soon Bodine’s sister and her two friends are ensconced in the back seat eavesdropping as we gossip about everyone we know. I think the people in the backseat can sense that we are both showing off just a little bit (ok we are showing off a lot,) but we feel we are entitled; after all we had not invited them along. Meanwhile, Bodine is valiantly trying not to go off on her sister for not first asking her about playing taxi to her friends.

It is 10: 45 pm, we are finally on our way (again) after making stops at the dressmaker (my friend is very annoyed and her claws are showing) and finally dropping her sister and her friends off. By this time we are both starving so we head down to Oaksfield looking for food. Kentucky is still open so we join the queue and place our orders. The woman who takes our order still manages to mix them up but we just say thanks and leave thanking God for small mercies. We realize that we are running short on gas so we pull into a service station. I see my friend Andre’ Chapelle and we chat for a while. He checks the oil and the coolant for us and we tell him about the mission that we are on. He tells us of the most likely place that we will find prostitutes and warns us to take off all our jewellery, and to keep the doors and windows locked. We show him the baseball bat and my friend’s high heels which could seriously hurt someone if applied to the right spot. Hopefully we won’t run into this type of trouble I pray silently. I am so not about the drama tonight, I think to myself.

With every distraction finally out of the way we make our way to Dowdeswell Street. This is the place to find prostitutes I have been told. I glance at my watch and it is 11:15pm. They should be out in full force I think to myself. I feel my journalistic juices beginning to churn. I am very excited. We spot three shadowy figures lounging
in the vicinity of Joy fm and my friend alerts me to the presence of our targets. I do a dance of joy in my head while trying to appear nonchalant. My friend indicates to one of the prostitutes that we’d like to speak with her.
On the off chance that she confuses us for “Sisters of Sappho” (lesbians) out for a thrill ride we quickly identify ourselves as journalists and explain our objective. We are greeted with an incredulous look and an accented ‘me not down with that right now’. My friend convinces the prostitute to stay and chat while I clumsily fumble for my tape recorder (a stupid move). Crickets chirp loudly in the ensuing silence as both Bodine and the prostitute wait for my thought provoking questions but my tape recorder is stuck. I finally win my tug of war with it only to see the hooker making a break for it looking like a vampire who has just caught sight of a cross. I try to convince her that I am not an undercover cop trying to entrap her but it is too late and she looks as if she is about to become boisterous. Fearing confrontation we flee. I am extremely angry at myself for blowing it but we have a list and a theoretical map outlining the most likely prostitute ridden corners so we move on.
Now this is the unbelievable part. Aside from the first three hookers we found we can not locate any more prostitutes in any of the other locations we try. We joke to each other that either business is extremely good or the prostitutes have all gone on vacation or found God. Our sails a bit crumpled, we decide to try one last spot- a local night club on West Bay Street. The women that we see entering the property all look like interview prospects so at the risk of offending any innocent parties who are present( and catching a beat down) . we decide to call it a night, grab a few drinks at a friends bar and retire from the tiring, pointless pastime of prostitute hunting, at least for this night.