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