Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer

Left: Amina Blackwood Meeks. - Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer.   Right: Stacyann Chin during her high-energy performance in 'Tongues of Fire' at the fifth annual Calabash Literary Festival, in St. Elizabeth, on May 28, 2005. - Claudine Housen/Staff Photographer

On an evening when, by previous predictions, Tropical Storm Ernesto should have been dumping many inches of rainfall upon Jamaica, three writers poured literature onto an appreciative audience at the Undercroft of the UWI, Mona Senate Building.

The 2006 Mona Academic Conference, 'Writing Life: Reflections By West Indian Writers', ended its weekend run with the passion of Staceyann Chin, the incisive wit of Amina Blackwood Meeks and rhythm with reason of Brother Resistance.

Chin read from her life, from a near gang rape on that same campus, where she was saved by the pleadings and fabrications of 'Andrew', as well as dash for safety in "that split second when nobody would touch me." When she reached safety "I thought it was time to consider America."

Chin went back to the coming of her period and a callous Aunty whose only counsel was "make sure you stop talking to boys over the fence. If you think I taking any babies under this roof." There were agonised chuckles over the solitary sanitary napkin foul-ups and sighs at a near physical confrontation with Aunty over a misused pad, before Chin concluded "the new red coming from me was the brilliant red of a hibiscus in full bloom."

Riotous trip

Blackwood-Meeks took all on a riotous trip to 'smaddification' to the music of percussionist M'Bala and the harmony of two female singers. Moving to and fro across the front of the audience and at times venturing into the seats to address persons directly, Meeks was expressive in face and voice. Required for the purpose was "a bokkle of fast acting bleach" and there was renewed laughter when she said "anybody know you separate smaddy from aspirants to smaddy wid language. Yu put a loooooong wedge between you an' dem."

Meeks ended with Miss Lou's funeral, as told by the character Little Miss Jing Bang. "You aint on the stage of the Ward Theatre, lady, you in a church now," Blackwood Meeks came back to intermittently, speaking of the OBEs (Obedient Boys of the Empire) with "tongue tiff lacka washing board."

Applause

And there was applause when she said there would never be a funeral for "French-speaking smaddy into Spanish, with a likkle French sprinkle in fe show dem know it."

Brother Resistance showed the power of dub in rapso style. He mixed his presentation with instructions on the history of the art form, defining rapso as "the power of the word is in the word."

There was strong perfor-mer/audience interplay, often with the listeners joining in on a refrain, as Brother Resistance addressed free speech, did Can't Take That and addressed the Big Dutty Lie of Christopher Colombus' discovery of the Caribbean. Resistance ended his performance and the conference with I Want A Witness.