Al Margen’s first outing was a night of poetry and song, a free event held at the Rock Hotel and featuring local poets and songsters, an event to complement the Gibraltar Literary Festival that was also taking place that week. In fact, Jonathan Teuma and I arrived hot foot from our appearance at the Literary Festival’s Poetry Panel, an interesting discussion with a panel of local poets and a guest all the way from Greece, but more about that in another post…
The evening was a huge success, with some 80 people attending, food and wine flowing to the tables, laughter mixed with intense listening, singing along, and lots of applause. Poets and people came together to revel in the joy of expressing stories and thoughts and emotions, just as people have done since time immemorial.
My fellow poets and songwriters were brilliant, bringing their talent to the people of Gibraltar utterly selflessly, giving of themselves fully. Rebecca Calderon was an efficient organising machine that drew us into her orbit and had us plunge into pulling the whole thing together.
Al Margen will be back….and in the meantime, enjoy these images of the evening
Rebecca Calderon, singing her brand new song - a cheeky take on the issue of the moment in Gibraltar, the principal auditor’s report.
James the Heartist - got us all into the rhythm of the evening with his drumming and his inimitable poetry and song
Jonathan Teuma - host for the evening, Jonatahn brought his towering talent to us in the form of llanito haikus, poetry, rhymes and song. This photo might well have been a ‘Cochinillo’ moment…those who know….
Adrian Pisarello - played his own music and also accompanies Rebecca with her songs. What a voice, what a guitarist, what a brilliant contribution he made to Al Margen!
Kailash Noguera, el poeta bandolero, made an unexpected and jaw-droppingly good appearance, reciting one of his poems for us at Al Margen. We were all grateful and delighted with his presence there.
And me, Jackie Anderson, reading my poem “To Speak your Tongue” about how Llanito as a language was almost lost. And I forgot to brush my hair, come siempre!