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Poetry college to launch islandwide school tour October 31

Published:Monday | October 9, 2023 | 12:08 AM
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Dr Amina Blackwood Meeks performing on stage at the inaugural Louise Bennett Coverley Festival. She will be the emcee at the launch of the Jamiaca Poets Nomadic School Tour.
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Dr Amina Blackwood Meeks performing on stage at the inaugural Louise Bennett Coverley Festival. She will be the emcee at the launch of the Jamiaca Poets Nomadic School Tour.
IRAWMA Award winner Cherry Natural.
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IRAWMA Award winner Cherry Natural.
Internationally acclaimed dub poet and founder of the tour, Malachi Smith.
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Internationally acclaimed dub poet and founder of the tour, Malachi Smith.
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The fifth staging of the Jamaica Poets Nomadic School Tour, which is being held in collaboration with the Poetry Society of Jamaica, will be officially launched on October 31 at 7 p.m. at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts Amphitheatre.

Guest speaker of this special anniversary launch will be Tanya Batson-Savage, while emcee will be Dr Amina Blackwood Meeks, celebrated international storyteller and senior lecturer at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts. Preliminary tour activities will begin on October 26.

More than 20 poets will visit educational institutions across Jamaica, and one of the main features and strengths of the tour, which is under the distinguished patronage of Jamaica’s Poet Laureate Olive Senior, will be the richness of the offerings from the poets with their different styles and backgrounds, in a campaign of positive messaging.

Among the poets on board are Professor Opal Palmer Adisa, the founding editor of Interviewing the Caribbean, with over 25 publications to her credit; Kwame MA McPherson, a prolific award-winning writer who is the first Jamaican to win the Commonwealth Short Story Prize (2023); Tomlin Ellis, founding member of Poets in Unity and the Poetry Society of Jamaica; Cherry Natural, IRAWMA Award winner; and Malachi Smith, internationally acclaimed, award-winning dub poet and founder of the tour.

The tour will conclude with a free poetry workshop taught by Professor Palmer Adisa and Fabian M. Thomas at UWI, Mona, on Friday, November 10.

Since its inception in 2017, the tour has grown from its sole feature performer, Malachi Smith, to more than 30 Jamaican poets bringing the joy of poetry to students and teachers who have also participated and shared their work. To-date, over 6,000 students and 37 schools have participated.

Importantly, this year’s tour also marks a major milestone with the publishing of an anthology by the participating poets. Named the Jamaica Poets Nomadic Tour Anthology, it was designed by Judith Falloon-Reid and edited by Prof Palmer Adisa. Copies will be available to participating schools.