Kisumu reveals the best poets in East Africa

The winner of this year’s East Africa Poetic Hour Battle was deservedly, Ms Laker Patience, a Kampala-based poet from Uganda whose acoustic performances really drew us in.

But the absence of a Kenyan at the finals of the regional competition was an antithesis for the crowd which wanted some social media bragging rights.

Undersigning the feeling that Kenya should have retained that title was perhaps the frenzy with which the crowd welcomed Ms Maisy Odalo, Order-Low, the now former East Africa Poetic hour champion for her coup de grace performance as she let the trophy go round the region.

Order-Low in her skin put the crowd on her palms, and moved it how she wanted, answering her cues like eager children, and rewarded by laughter. Hers must have been the act that crowned the night.

She was not part of the intense performance that had 20 poets compete to spit in about 180 minutes on a range of topics from misinformation, why poetry does not pay, a poem in mother tongue and a freestyle act.

The performances, were amazing to say the least; it showed East Africa had it. A powerful tribe of wordsmiths that made CS Ababau Namwamba sit two hours and compete with his mobile phone. The intense hour had the CS quoting Rudyard Kipling’s IF, as if it reminded him of younger days.

The evening saw Governor Anyang Nyongo spring around on and off stage, giddy with laughter and eager to promise a Kisumu Theatre that would rival the Kenya National Theater in Nairobi.

The competition all boiled down to a surprising turn when all the poets who had made round three were supposed to recite a poem in their mother tongue. If many of us had been up there we would have bowed out.

But they cracked it. The home crowd was undoubtedly swayed by Writefully Ochomo, who was on home ground in Kisumu pined to by his local admirer from the crowd who kept shouting his name “Ochomo!

Alek Paul Mayen from South Sudan also gave an enchanting performance setting aside her English accent and sliding into the grace and fervent pride of South Sudan that forced his fellow home poet Mr. Mosai , whose Swahili renditions were just hilarious, to joyfully grab the mic- in the heat of the moment, and give an underlining adulation.

But for me, the one poet who stole my night was Kizudeh from Kenya. I was taking photos of the event when I saw him just about to get on stage.

He had made most of his performances with a signature look, easy casual, with a marvin rolled up just above his ears. But this time round, he had gone for a look. A white respectable African wear and a large brimmed black hat. This I was to learn were two people in one and I was lucky to photograph both.

He had an impressive style, choosing to take the battle in Kenya’s slang, Sheng but sowed how comfortable he was sliding into and out of different languages when he gave his performance in Kamba.

Just before his act, the sound man sneaked an extra microphone stand on stage. I initially thought the other mic was faulty or they had got jealous of it grabbing the attention as the measure of how tall or incredibly short some of the poets were. But the sound man placed the extra stand and mic next to each other.

Now it might be easier for a Ugandan poet or a South Sudanese poet to go at their tongue since they had brought along a raucous crowd for home support. The Luo undoubtedly were on home ground as they dominated the rank and file.

But for a Kamba rendition in Kisumu. I knew Kizudeh was under a lot of pressure acknowledging he will be lucky to get a few Kamabas in the crowds who could really connect to his act. But he was confident, and fluent. He gave the audience what was possibly very good Kamba, and hooked them with the only thing they were yearning to hear, the ‘Asi!’ expression in intonation and dramatization.

But then he switched sides to the extra mic, took off his large black rimmed cap and became his father’s son, who invited the Kenyan crowd into that space and turned sheng into our mother tongue. This was an incredible performance playing both father and son having an intergenerational conversation in Kamba and Sheng in a relatable situation that we almost suspect actually happened.

This for me was an innovative performance where the artist read his disadvantage and turned it round into and bipolar performance of language where we used one side of a conversation to guess what the other was saying and actually getting it. It felt like we understood his conversation with his father.

In the end I went and paid homage to the poet, who I think would have retained the title for us if for nothing, for this work of genius.

But even if the regional title is gone, it seems, the Kenyan title is contested.

Edited for, correction of the name of South Sudanese poet, Alek Paul Mayen.