Oku Onuora delivers 'In the Beginning'

Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

The Poetry Society of Jamaica titled the first fellowship of its 2012 calendar 'In the Beginning' and Tuesday evening's featured poet, Oku Onuora, laid claim to his pioneering role at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts.

Immediately before doing that Onuora defined his purpose, saying "we come fe dub out little unconsciousness and dub in some consciousness. It is a process of dubbing". Then, he said, "Before I there were just poets, and we done talk." There was a gust of laughter from the large audience at the college's amphitheatre.

During his presentation, in which he shifted easily between the lectern and moving around the performance area, his body language adding to the poems, Onuora utilised a temporary lapse in the amplification system to put his presentation skills to good effect. Noting that they were at a theatre and with his hands free of the microphone, Onuora delivered with his unamplified voice, able to put even more body expression into the poems.

RANGE OF ISSUES

And there were many well-known and loved poems threaded into a narrative where Onuora tackled issues ranging from the absence of poetry on the Jamaica Jazz and Blues programme ("Them a celebrate the 50th anniversary of our music, and not even one poet?") to his unshod feet ("Me hear dem a throw some word on barefoot. Dem cyaa too call up my name.").

Pressure Drop came before Onuora honoured "one of our unsung heroes, Peter Wailer". He fused the last word of Tosh's song title and phrase "equal rights and justice" into his poem, going into a high-pitched voice and employing a distinctive vocal reverb, echoing the last syllable.

There was encouragement for poets, to not wait on a producer but to seize the initiative, as well as to write from personal experience.

"You know say life is a up and down thing. We experience a lot of things," Onuora said. "I been thinking about you," Onuora read from paper, expanding on the diversity of poetry when the piece was finished.

"We experience love, we experience trying to unlove," he said, before reading How Do You Unlove?, in which he asked if one trying to unlove should repeat "I love you not, I love you not?... What do you do when you try not to feel?"

There was examination of the purpose of education, ending "educated and liberated, that is the way to be, be, be, be".

JAMAICA IN CRISIS

High Wire came before a call for Slum Dweller, which Onuora did, then commented on the state of Jamaica, which he described as being in a crisis. "The people selfish 'til them all selfish with themselves. When you see how them behave pon the road, that's where you really see the selfishness," he said.

And he spoke to his love and concern for the children before the closing poem, which stated "black child I love you", but asked "where will you be tomorrow", one of the possibilities being "some unidentified body in the morgue".

But the poem and the night ended on a note of hope, for the child to "change into a sun child God", Onuora leaning standing near the centre of the performance area, leaning his head back with arms spread wide.