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Christopher Gordon (right) in performance with Nomaddz, the Kingston College drama club. Gordon is one of the youngest poets to have won in the Root Cause competition.
Tanya Batson, Staff Reporter
FOR THE past eight weeks, aspiring poets have been 'rushing the mic' at Weekenz Bar and Bistro, 80 Constant Spring Road, St. Andrew, as a part of 'Root Cause'. Root Cause is a poetry competition which has temporarily taken over from the regular poetry night featuring Voice The Spoken Word in Action. Voice has made its home at the bar and bistro since last November and will return at the end of the competition.
The competition will last for 10 weeks, with nine making up the preliminary rounds. Next Tuesday's event will therefore be the last of this inaugural staging. Each week the poets vie for $5,000.00 and a chance to make it to the grand finals. The runner-up from each week gets a chance to return to take a second stab at the grand finals. From the grand finals, the winning poet will be able to walk home with a $50,000.00 grand prize.
LURE
According to one of the founding members of Root Cause, Connie Bell, the prize is in part merely a lure to get the voice of the 'grass roots' heard. Connie Bell is the face of Root Cause, which is a collective of some eight persons. Although Bell is the face that everyone sees since she also hosts the weekly events at Weekenz, the competition is financed by all the members.
Also the founder of Voice The Spoken Word in Action, Bell has had some experience in organising poetry events. Before the event found a home at the now extinct Harry's Bar (which was situated on the grounds now occupied by Weekenz), Voice had started in Bell's home, before growing into a monthly event.
PATRIOTISM
Bell explained that what Root Cause hopes to do is affect cultural issues through the spoken word. She also sees the movement as an attempt to encourage and perpetuate patriotism. She noted that the movement hopes to remove poetry from the damning stereotype of being merely an 'uptown' event.
If the persons who have won so far are anything to go by, Root Cause does present a mixed bag of poets. While all are in varying stages of developing their poetic careers, some have already established a presence on the local scene, while two were high school students.
Both students emerged from the drama club at Kingston College. Fourteen-year-old Garfield Thompson was the first to win the competition. Four weeks later, his purple-blooded schoolmate Christopher Gordon tied for the first prize with Simone Bryan. Along with Bryan, two other female poets have walked away with the $5,000 prize. These are Sabriya and Caroline Stevenson.
STRONG POETIC VOICE
Winners of the competition also include Andrew Miller, who represented the Jamaica Poetry Society at the second staging of the Calabash Literary Festival, last year. Another strong poetic voice which also took home the weekly prize is Neto Meeks. Ricardo Barrett and Orville Hall are the poets who bring the number of winners to nine. Hall is a teacher in the performing arts department at Excelsior Community College.
The poets are each judged on four categories: content, stage delivery, impact and creativity. Bell pointed out that it must be noted that it is the spoken word, which is being promoted in this competition. However, she made a point to stress that the performance is not allowed to outweigh the content since the latter is the most important. Even so, not only social commentary is allowed into the competition. She notes that Root Cause sees all kinds of poetry as valid forms of expression.
The competition is judged by a pool of eight judges, who are work in randomly chosen groups of four each week. These judges have included Barbara Blake Hannah, Mikey Bennett and Jean Small.
SLAM POETRY
Bell noted that the grand finals will be a celebration of the nine weeks of performances. This celebration will include the slamming words of United States poet Saul Williams. Williams performed in the 'Tongues of Fire' segment of Calabash last year. His well-earned fame on the Slam poetry circuit won him the lead role in the 1998 feature film Slam, which won the Sundance Festival Grand Jury Prize and the Cannes Camera D'Or.
Not only competing poets get a chance to demonstrate lyrical fruits at the weekly events. Each night of competition is followed by an open microphone segment which gives poets and would-be poets a chance to test their words without the pressure of competition.
After the finals on May 6, Root Cause will make its return in the summer.
