That's MY vroom-vroom!

"I nuh support anybody weh just tek fi we name; and if you go deh you da wa traitor!"

Those were the words of my best friend and old performance poetry co-coordinator when I asked him if he was going to 'Perk Up's Candle Light Poetry Night'.  he was right, of course.  no matter which way I turned it around in my head trying to ameliorate the whole situation, it still ticks in my craw just a little bit.  Sure "Poetry Night" doesn't exactly scream proprietary product; and sure, we'dgone on an indefinite hiatus.  Poetry Night was just sitting there; an all but discared thing, a lonely child just begging to be picked up, brushed off, and taken home.  Jackee Burns picked it up.  As much as I tell myself that this is a good and just and probably all for the best, it still annoys me on some level.

At the same time I pity her for her new burden.  She's decided to make it a weekly thing, the poor dear.  I know from the many times that we just barely made the monthly shows that down that pat lies only heartbreak.  She's also less organized, which means most of the shows involve herself and her friends reading from anthologies and collections by other authors, whom i don't even know if she tries to contact. The first one I went to (yes, i've committed this betrayal before) the audio was horrible, a single hand-held PA system that had obviously been untested in this kind of setting.  There was nothing to focus the attention of the audience and the crowd was obviously more interested in their meals.

This time things werent any better.  The candles around the room were a very nice touch, but it resultd in the performers (Jackee and her sister, mostly, and a shy young lady who sang quite prettily, with her hands in her pockets and her eyes on the floor.)  Standing in a dark corner.  The dominoes game going on at the center table was a fresh annoyance, but there were still old classics like the demonic hiss of the espresso machine mid-lyric.

So what's a guy in my position to do?  I want my show back, and more and more I'm seeing reason and opportunity to do so.  But, these days, my concentration is fractured, in a million places at once.  It would make sense to bring on new members, new coordinators.  But at the same time, the only people I know that have a similar vision of what these shows should be are already working with me.  Does that sound arrogant?  I think it might be.  And I think that might be a problem.  I'd like to bring in other people but there are some directions that i don't want to go.  The cheap, easy route; the way of compromising and easy-roading and second besting, just isn't for me.  And around here the alternative isn't for most other people.

Aside from that, I really don't want to step on anyone's toes.  That might be the result of my notorious non-confrontationalism; my biggest fault.  They've got something going there, in their minds, and I'd rather not be the tantrum throwing brat marching into the room and demanding the toy he'd left haphazardly lying about.  There might be a compromise to be made in here soewhere.  There might be a discussion that I can have, at least, with those involved that will reveal some new, helpful insight for me.

I was never very good at starting discussions.

What's happening with Polymath

 I've been thinking a lot about stories lately.  And just to clarify, I'm not talking about fairy tales or love stories.  I'm talking about the things that happen, that go unshared, but ought not to be.  This, right here?  This thing you're reading?  This is a story.  And yes, it may not sell books or make millions of dollars in movie sales, but like all stories it deserves to be shared.  It deserves an audience.  And I REALLY want to give it that.  This story, and stories like it.  And many other stories out there.

There's a combination of things that's been inspiring this, I think.  A big part of it is the things that I've been feeding my brain with lately.  Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale is a book about books.  About stories and writing, and only partly about the people that write them.  I've been delving into the blogs and available writing of Caribbean writers.  People with stories and cultures so rich that it makes me jealous.  And I've been been listening to a lot of Selected Shorts, The New Yorker, The Moth, and This American Life on my iPod.   All the while I think 'Why don't we have this?  Why aren't we telling our stories?  When I downloaded an old podcast from Caribbean Free Radio and heard the contributors sitting around a table with a bottle of gin and simply...talking; simply telling the story of that year's Calabash Festival, I was sure that we needed something like that. 

On top of that, I still (STILL!) get asked about Poetry Night.  About Polymath and about the plans and intentions that we had.  And as much as it was stressful and difficult it was always so immeasurably rewarding.  Even the disappointments, to me, were great things.  And recently we've been having whispers and plotting sessions.  Measuring the best places for an antenna.  Judging costs of converting a certain upstairs.  The phrases 'Radio Station' and 'Our Own' have been meeting in dangerous proximity.  We even talk about it as if it already exists, and only half in joke.  "That's a good idea." We say.  "We'll put that on the programming schedule for Pirate Radio."  Pirate Radio.  A play on Belize's buccaneering days.  That's what I'd call it, at least.  I don't think Manza's quite sold on it.  Furthermore, I don't think he really knows how excited I am about the prospect.  Because i haven't rushed out to buy an antenna or arranged to procure recording equipment, he probably thinks I've brushed it under the rug or that I wasn't really taking him seriously in the first place.  That's not the case. 

I am taking him seriously.  I do listen when he starts talking about these wild ideas.  I believe in the brother, ever since he made the first one happen.  But after the first one, I stopped worrying about the physical aspect.  I stopped worrying about how we're gonna make a stage appear out of thin air.  How we're gonna get wiring and speakers.  How we're gonna get house lights and get a bunch of people crammed into a room to listen to one tiny, shy voice at a time.  Now when he says 'we're going to put on a show.' I believe him.  When he says 'Its gonna be outside' I say 'There's gonna be lights in the trees and paper lanterns and people sipping wine on ' and I don't feel stupid for thinking so big.  Likewise, when he asked that first time 'You think we can find poets?  You think people will be into it?' and I told him 'People will be into it.  They'll fucking weep!', he believed me.  And it all happened.

Its just that right now, I'm more concerned with content.  I don't want to tackle this tiger head on.  I'd rather sneak up on it.  Death from above.  By the time Brah Tiga know's what's happening, I want to already have my teeth in him.  So, with that in mind, my after-work project for the next couple days is to take one of the Hard Drives I have at home and converting my home PC into a part time recording and editing PC.  I don't have the best mic, but I have a mic.  I don't have a studio but I have a room that's quiet if I let it be.  I don't have the top of the line software, but I've got Ubuntu, and open source resources.  I don't have the stories.  Not yet.  But I've got the drive.  And I've got the imagination.

This is gonna happen.  Just watch.