It's a clear sign that Muham­mad Muwak­il is do­ing some­thing right when the mere men­tion of his name is met with ap­prov­ing nods and smiles from both the young and the young at heart. Fresh from rave per­for­mances just af­ter Car­ni­val at Talk Tent, this spo­ken word artiste is set to take cen­tre-stage once again-this time at Drink! Wine Bar in Wood­brook next Thurs­day, as part of the Can­dle­light Se­ries. For some­one per­form­ing po­et­ry for the com­par­a­tive­ly short pe­ri­od of five years, Muwak­il has emerged as a young man whose prover­bial fin­ger ap­pears to be on the very pulse of Caribbean peo­ple, even while the themes of his lay­ered work speak to a much broad­er world au­di­ence.

Muwak­il's in­ci­sive de­liv­ery, yet en­dear­ing ap­peal, has al­ready spawned ap­pear­ances at sev­er­al over­seas fo­rums. He has per­formed and pre­sent­ed at the 2007 Cal­abash Lit­er­ary Fes­ti­val in Ja­maica and the 2010 Na­ture Is­land Lit­er­ary Fes­ti­val in Do­mini­ca among oth­ers. As a core mem­ber of the group Free­town Col­lec­tive, a self-de­scribed "tribe of po­ets and lyri­cists", he pre­sent­ed his works at sev­er­al Lon­don venues last year to over­whelm­ing­ly af­firm­ing re­spons­es. Muwak­il is cur­rent­ly in the process of pub­lish­ing his first col­lec­tion of po­ems -a nat­ur­al corol­lary to his avid in­volve­ment in the spo­ken word move­ment.

With­out let­ting too many se­crets out of the bag, the young artiste re­veals that Thurs­day's show promis­es to be de­cid­ed­ly dif­fer­ent from what he has been do­ing in the re­cent past. Join­ing Muwak­il on stage will be Free­town Col­lec­tive's Kee­gan Ma­haraj and Lou Lyons, to ren­der an orig­i­nal and in­sight­ful mix of spo­ken word, mu­sic and song. The Can­dle­light Se­ries fea­tures artists in an in­ti­mate, acoustic set­ting. Thurs­day's show will start at 9 pm and there will be a cov­er charge of $60.

For more in­for­ma­tion, check the Face­book Page, The Can­dle­light Se­ries fea­tur­ing Muham­mad Muwak­il, or call 468-0063.