After teaching my eco-dyeing workshop in Niddrie on Sunday, I headed to the Beit e'Shai Teahouse and Pop-Up Gallery in Preston for an evening of tea, tunes and poetry.
Shiralee Hood was our wonderful MC. Farhad Bandesh sang songs in Kurdish to Yusuke's improvised guitar. All while Nadine served us drinks and snacks and Tara worked in the kitchen to brew more tea. Rasha Tayeh, a Palestinian herbalist and nutritionist, has created a beautiful space in which to meet new friends and drink tea. Everything about the teahouse feels intentional and beautiful.
There was a green room for the performers where I got to hear the musicians rehearsing and our MC running through her lines.
A green room! How rockstar is that? Having a place to sit with other performers and prepare was amazing. And Rasha bought us her hibiscus tea and snacks from the Vietnamese restaurant next door that came on real plates. It felt so supportive to have a dedicated space for performers to focus on their work before sharing it with an audience. It's the first time I've ever had a green room – I could get used to it!
I performed poems about the diaspora experience and the legacy of my mixed race heritage. I wanted to bring all the facets of my being – the food, the language, the culture and the ways in which they inhabit my mind and body.
I think it was my best performance ever. Rasha created an intimate, safe and welcoming space. And the audience was warm and supportive. I felt at home in the teahouse with this incredible community and my words flowed easily.
I haven't been writing lot of poetry this year. With all that is happening in the world at the moment, writing poetry feels frivolous and like an indulgence. Here I am safe from harm while other people are starving or are being slaughtered. Genocide is happening in Palestine and our leaders are doing nothing. We petition and protest and we march and still our leaders don't listen.
So me performing poetry, what's that about? How's that going to help anyone? These are some of the questions I was wrestling with after I accepted Rasha's invitation to perform at the Sunday Sessions. I said yes because I wanted to support her business and her community by giving my time and performing. But still, what good would it do?
And then I thought, what would I say to someone else if they asked me: 'What is the point of performing/writing poetry if other people are suffering?' And my answer would be 'Your voice is important. What you have to say matters.'
If we can speak, then we should. About whatever it is that we want to share.
It's the only way we'll ever be able to understand each other.