People who march to a different drum do not understand why all the rest of the world is out of step, but there are some times when that different drum must beat loudly enough to force the proverbial ostriches to get their heads out of the proverbial sand.

That is exactly what Ginette Benjamin did on the evening of Sunday 9th October 2005. The Anguillian public does not strike me as a poetry loving public and with the price of gasoline as high as it is, some may have thought twice about driving down to the Dune Preserve, but those of us who were there found it to be an eye-opening, thought-provoking event. In any case the Dune has such an irie vibration that the promise of clearing cobwebs from the brain is always worth the trip. That Sunday night was something different. It was a naked truth in your face performance, delivered by a young woman born to conquer. It was rage turned into poetry to released or otherwise be consumed by the telling of abuse that no child should experience. I understood why it was marketed for an adult audience. It was sad, it was raw, it was ugly, it was triumphant and the triumph was beautiful to behold. That was Ginette. However, knowing that catharsis itself can wreak havoc in the coming, Ash and Jaine provided the perfect balancing act, soothing, rubbing the spot, applying the hot water bottle just where it hurt the most, all the while giving Ginette the, Go Girl! Go!

Ginette is not just a poet. She is also a dancer and I look forward to seeing more of her dance integrated into the poetry. This young sister is also a bold trendsetter who has learned not to let small islands reduce her to nothingness – who is unafraid to tell you even what she knows you do not want to hear. So, it was not just poetry. It was performance and the setting was just right for the occasion. She also has a sense of showbiz as her changes of outfit for different parts of the performance revealed. She will take that poetry exactly where she wants it to go and one of the places I want to invite her to take it is to the mini-project of the Stingray Music Programme that involves young people talking to their peers about HIV/AIDS and other risks. Her work can help other young people who may want to rage violently, to express themselves using the outlets that are always available to us through the vehicles of culture. It is a way of breaking the culture of silence about
the sexual abuse of children in Anguilla and about the hypocrisies of a Babylonian system in which adults engage in the very unacceptable behaviours for which they want to ostracize the youth.

That evening at the Dune Preserve was also characterized by a degree of originality that made me realize I may be losing my claim to fame as Ms. Culture herself. Ginette was not the only poet in the house that night. I also discovered Ash whose poetry, sung by Jaine, complemented Ginette’s very well. Jaine is a singer whose voice I will never tire of hearing. She has the kind of bluesouljazz timbre that can get under your skin, go to bed and wake up with in your head. It amazes also because she is she so petite - a lovely voice of an equally lovely young woman. Ash also did a wonderful job with the solo drum accompaniment, enhancing and never competing with the poet’s performance. I also did not know that Ash and Jaine had already recorded original compositions, which are just waiting for us to have them grace our collections. I did not know that Davon Carty has a masterpiece called “When God Cries.” What I did know was that the Dune Preserve is simply asserting its long-standing association with originality and this time, the artistes are more than Bankie, Bullet and Ras Jones. Thanks to Ginette, the poetry night that the King of the Dune envisaged so long ago, has been realised and is now just to be regularized. Who knows, maybe I’ll dust off some of my own oldie goldies and bring them out of the closet. Bankie doesn’t know it yet and I hope he says yes but some of the young people in the Stingray Programme will have some material ready by the time of next Moonsplash. I hope they can be accommodated somewhere among the lineup.

There was something else that I noticed about Ginette’s night and that was the emphasis placed on the video documentation. Knowing Ginette that would not just have been to enable Bankie to see what was going on at the Dune in his absence. I would therefore not be surprised if her work becomes available to us on DVD or whatever the latest technology is. The other thing I noticed was that there were some new and young faces at the Dune and not just a bunch of hip middle-agers like me. I don’t even know if hip is a word that young people still use but at least those of us around my age could think of it as our contribution to hip hop. I think I should end this before I become completely carried away and make further claims that it would be difficult for me to substantiate. I just want to say that for Ginette Benjamin who has broken new ground on which the spoken word will lay the foundation for healing hurting youth – I give thanks.

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