Jamaican Poets All-Island School Tour, 2019

The stage is set. Excitement and expectations are building for the 2019 edition of the Jamaican Poets All-island School Tour. Twenty one poets will be taking part in the two-week tour.

This year, the tour's official launch is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, November 5, 2019, at 6 p.m. at the Edna Manley College in Kingston. The guest speaker will be Ms. Andrea Chung, co-founder of Kingston Creative. Chung is also a shareholder in Bookophilia and founder of Go Global Art, an online art gallery that offers original art for sale. Dignitaries and representatives from Jamaica Copyright Society (Jam Copy), the National Library of Jamaica, and the Poetry Society of Jamaica, will offer greetings. The evening will conclude with readings by the poets who are participating on the tour.

Another big innovation for the 2019 tour is the hosting of a free poetry workshop at UWI, Mona, on Thursday, November 7,2019, at 2 p.m., in the Old Arts Building, Room # 3. The main workshop presenter, Professor Opal Palmer Adisa, is a distinguished Caribbean writer and scholar, and  she currently a faculty member at UWI, Mona. Jamaican writer, lecturer and Minister of Religion, Michael Reckord will do a session on "What Critics Look For," and Canadian based Jamaican dub poet Klyde Brooks will do a presentation on dub poetry.  A reading by some members of the tour and UWI students will follow at 6 p.m. in the multipurpose room at the UWI Library.

The workshop is being held in partnership with the Department of Literature in English at Mona, Jam Copy and the Poetry Society of Jamaica. It is being coordinated by Mbala of the Poetry Society and Antoinette Jackson of the Department of Literature in English, Mona.

The twenty-one poets, who will be touring the island, range from internationally known poets to those who are up and coming.  It is headlined by the founder of the tour, Malachi Smith. The other poets are, 2019 IRAWMA winner Chery Natural, Tomlin Ellis, Ann Margaret-Lim, Judith Falloon-Reid, Fabian Thomas, Klyde Brooks, Richie Innocent, Wise Wurdz, Antonia Valaire, Howard Hendricks, Ras Jaja, Marcus Harrison, Garfield G.G. Gouldbourne, Anord Sichinsambwe, Amaziyah The Great, Alan Parish, Dawitt St. Aubyn, Dusty, Charlie Bobus, and the youngest of all, 8 year old Courtney Greaves, AKA Mini Miss Lou, a multi- gold medalist winner in the annual J.C.D.C competitions.

Last year, the poet’s tour made stops at UWI, Mico University College, Kingston Technical High School, Campion College, Edna Manley College, Mount Alvernia High School, Munroe College, St. Elizabeth Technical High School, the YWCA School in Spanish Town, Bookophilia and one public reading in Montego Bay.

The tour was launched in 2017 to provide opportunities for Jamaican poets to read and share with students, while showing the positive role of poetry and its role as a tool of empowerment.  It aims to also empower, while showing them how poetry can be used in conflict resolutions and their personal growth.

Among the stops for 2019 are UWI, Mico University College, Campion College, KTHS, JYTC Auditorium, YWCA – Spanish Town, Ocean Village – Ocho Rios, Cornwall College, Mt. Alvernia, Montego Bay High, STETHS, Glenmuir, and Bookophilia.

For registration for the poetry workshop at UWI, please email: liteng@uwimona.edu.jm

The tour is part sponsored by Jam Copy and Reggae Threads.

For all further inquiries pertaining to the tour please contact Malachi Smith: malismith58@gmail.com or malismithsmith@aol.com. Tel: (305) 302-5365.

"Meet the Artist" series: Geoffrey Philp and Dr. Marvin Dunn

Join us for wine, cheese, poetry, and conversation with Geoffrey Philp and Dr. Marvin Dunn at  5:00 p.m  on Thursday, October 3, 2019.

The Betsy Hotel
1440 Ocean Drive, Miami Beach, Florida

Funny, You Don't Look Jewish

About eighteen months after my post about DNA testing, my life took an unexpected turn. I was contacted by a cousin in Canada, who revealed to me that my maternal grandmother was Jewish. I never knew about that part of my family‘s history because my grandmother died when my mother was still a child and my grandmother’s story went with her to the grave.

Since then and through a series of fortuitous events, I have been working with the New Voices Project, which focuses on the moral lessons of the Holocaust, and my poem “Flying African,” has become part of their PSA for a forthcoming book, New Voices: Contemporary Writers Confronting the Holocaust.

"Flying African" on YouTube

The research has been harrowing, but I’ve been using the work of Gregory H. Stanton, The 8 Stages of Genocide, as a conceptual guide. I’ve also been fortunate enough to receive a residency in “The Writer’s Room” at The Betsy Hotel, where I will be able to devote myself fully to research and writing.

Then, on October 3, 2019, as part of The Betsy Hotel’s “Meet the Artist” series, I will be reading some more of the poems that I’ve written.

So, if you’re in town, please join me at The Betsy Hotel at 5.p.m. as I embark on this new phase into my genetic history.

Here is another of the poems--which seems appropriate for today--that I've written so far.

The Shofar of Auschwitz

Rosh Hashanah, 1944

For Chaskel Tydor

It may not be a miracle like on Hanukkah,

but finding the shofar days before Rosh Hashanah,

when the Talmud teaches that Joseph was freed

from prison on the first day of the new year,

when the impossible is possible if we stay open,

made us think that maybe, this was a sign

Hashem had not abandoned us to our murderers.

So, in spite of the death, disease, and torture

that plagued the Lager, where to perform a mitzvah,

like a mishloach minot or teaching the Pirkei Avot

could be rewarded by the fascists with a bullet

to the back of my head. But I didn’t care.

The shofar on my lips, I blew as if my life depended

on it, and then, a year later, three miles off the coast

of Palestine, as if to say, "We are still here. The tribe lives on."

Source: https://www.aish.com/jw/s/The-Shofar-of-Auschwitz.html?s=mm

 

MAKE IT REAL: Writers Clinic With Caribbean Authors

The Louise Bennett-Coverley-Heritage Council, as part of the centenary celebrations of Jamaica’s cultural icon, the Honourable Louise Bennett-Coverley, will host a one-day writers clinic - Make it Real- on Saturday, October 5, 2019, 10:00am– 5:00pm.  The Clinic will be held at  Broward County West Regional Library,  8601 West Broward Boulevard, Plantation, Florida 33324. 

Make it Real  will help writers take the ideas they’ve been wanting to write about, shape, polish and breathe life into them so they can become real stories or poems.   Two workshops, Fiction, and  Poetry will be held concurrently. A third workshop on Performance Poetry will  be open to all participants.  The sessions will cover: character and plot development, stage craft and delivery, playing with rhyme and rhythm and editing for publication. 

To celebrate Louise Bennett-Coverley’s iconic contribution to Caribbean literature, the Writer’s Clinic will be taught by three outstanding Caribbean writers who live in Florida.

Christine Craig will host the Poetry clinic. She was born in Jamaica and is a graduate of the University of the West Indies. Her short stories and poems have been published in British, American and Caribbean journals. Described as “One of the Caribbean’s most original and innovative poets” - her poetry collection All Things Bright…and Quadrille for Tigers was published by Peepal Tree Press, UK. Her short story collection Mint Tea and other Stories, and children’s fiction Bird Gang, were published by Heinemann Caribbean. 

Geoffrey Philp will host the Fiction clinic. He has written two novels, Benjamin, my son and Garvey's Ghost; two collections of short stories, Who's Your Daddy? and Uncle Obadiah and the Alien, and three children’s books, Marcus and the Amazons, The Christmas Dutch Pot Baby, and Grandpa Sydney's Anancy Stories. His work is represented in nearly every anthology of Caribbean literature including the Oxford Book of Caribbean Short Stories and the Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse.

Malachi Smith is the presenter of the Performance Poetry clinic. He is a fellow of the University of Miami’s Michener Caribbean Writer’s Institute, an alumnus of Florida International University, Miami-Dade College and Jamaica School of Drama. Malachi was a founding member of Poets in Unity. He has recorded seven CD collections of his poetry and has read and performed his poetry internationally. 

The writing clinic is sponsored by the Louise Bennett-Heritage Council, Broward County Public Library, Friends of the South Regional Library and Friends of the West Regional Library. The Writers Clinic is free and open to writers in all genres.  For applications email Malachi at malismith@aol.com or log on to www.louisebennettheritage.com