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’.

I’ve been in Guyana for a week now and, as I come to terms with my surroundings, the extra is being knocked off the extraordinary. A friend recently suggested that while long experience can provide a useful guide to an area, descriptions are often best when they come from newcomers – newbies are more likely to remark on the remarkable.

It’s true and I can see that I’m starting to adapt. The humidity and mosquitos bother me less than they did a week ago and the constant noises are sinking into the background. I’ve just travelled the road from the airport to Georgetown again and was less gob-smacked by everything this time.

The drive from the airport into the centre of Georgetown was filled with sights – colonial-style wooden buildings (usually on stilts – this place is below sea level and liable to flood), fields of sugar cane, beer and rum distilleries and a minibus nose-down in a ditch with a crowd (all seemingly unharmed) surrounding it.

It was pretty obvious I wasn’t in Birmingham anymore.

Since settling at the apartment it’s the sounds that are the most distinctive; there’s always something making noise somewhere. After only a few days I’ve realsised I’ve started to tune out many of the most common sounds. Before I start to ignore them completely, here’s what’s been filling my ears:

The car horns that are used almost as frequently as indicators (and for the same purpose).

The dogs that erupt at night if you let the door to outside bang shut. I’ve learnt my lesson now.

The crickets that chirrup with a metronomic rhythm; at first I wondered if their noise was being made by a generator.

Chutney’s a new one on me – an uptempo mix of soca (think souped-up calypso) and Bollywood music. They seem to like it at the rum bar just over the road.

My shouty neighbour who, at 6am every morning, has an impassioned conversation/argument with someone on the phone. Still, the early starts mean I can get a little work done before I go off to teaching.

We’re off to an open mic poetry night at a place called Upscale tonight. Or tomorrow. Reports seems a little confused. Either way, it seems pretty apt, so I’ll try to make it along and report back.

(Pic – Station Street, Georgetown by Chris Unitt)