Georgetown poetry

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

Last week I went along to Xpress Yoself, a monthly poetry night in Georgetown which is held at Upscale, one of the swankier venues in town.

The night has been running for a couple of years now under the direction of Yaphet Jackman and features poetry and story-telling from a cast of regulars, clips from the Mos Def-hosted Def Poetry and an open-mic section.

1 August was Emancipation Day, with celebrations across the country – the biggest of all being held in Georgetown’s national park – so it was inevitable that Emancipation was to be the theme of the evening.

There was a decent turnout, although the hubbub occasionally obscured the poets’ words. The first-timers struggled to command attention, but the opportunity to gain stage time is important for anyone starting out. The crowd didn’t ignore the performers and were generous with their applause, congratulating anyone brave enough to step up and express themselves.

It was hard to catch many names, but the highlights were an impassioned call to action from the fiery-eyed regular Jerome Hope and a lady’s expression of pride for her motherland.

Most impressive, for me, was Kojo McPherson (in the pic above), chief scriptwriter for Merundoi (think the Guyanese Archers) who has also been a student on our web skills course. He read at least three poems, the first a personal spin on Gil Scott-Heron’s ‘The Revolution…’, the last being an open-hearted love letter he’d written as a young man.

Xpress Yoself have a Facebook group and a YouTube channel with videos from previous evenings. This is an earlier recording of Kojo McPherson’s ‘The Revolution’.

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