NASSAU, BAHAMAS – L.W. Young Junior High School joined poets around the world on Monday, March 21, in celebration of World Poetry Day 2022.
Under the school’s new pavilion, students and teachers celebrated this day by sharing their creative abilities through poetry, recitals, music, choral speaking and languages.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) founded this day in 1999 during its 30th General Conference in Paris. The day is set aside to “honour poets, revive oral traditions of poetry recitals, promote the reading, writing and teaching of poetry, foster the convergence between poetry and other arts such as theatre, dance, music and painting, and raise the visibility of poetry in the media”.
Minister of Education and Technical & Vocational Training Glenys Hanna-Martin led the list of dignitaries at the event. Also present were former MP and Cabinet minister Hope Strachan, Ambassador and Permanent Delegate to UNESCO; Lorraine Armbrister, Permanent Secretary; Dr. Marcellus Taylor, Director; Dedrie Bastian, Secretary General, the Bahamas National Commission for UNESCO and senior education officials. Special guests included Arlene Nash-Ferguson and Percy Vola Francis, UNESCO representatives and local cultural icons.
Strachan gave remarks on behalf of the director of UNESCOs Cluster Office for the Caribbean, Saadia Beatriz Sanchez Vegas.
In brief remarks, Hanna-Martin told the students that poetry begins with a blank page, for which they are the architects, and likened it to the construction of a building.
“Like a building, a poem is crafted in the imagination, it is polished, painted, but words are used as the raw material for the construction,” she said.
“The end product is a beautiful piece of art. The creative imagination is a place for freedom. Freedom — an unending expanse. Your creative imagination has no boundaries and it belongs exclusively to you.”
The minister urged the students to find their place of freedom in their creative imagination and tap into their creative energy to inspire, touch, move and excite the human spirit. By request,, Victoria Smith read the poem “I Believe in Me By” written by Deputy permanent secretary Donovan Turnquest.
Other presentations included: “The Words I Speak” written and presented by Bodine Johnson, Education Officer; “I am a Bahamian” written by James Catalyn and presented by students of grade 7; “We Declare Peace” by Javan Dean; “Figures of Speech” by grade 9 students; “My Town, My People” a poem in Spanish written by Dr. Sharon Parker and performed by Kelissa Marcellin of grade 8; and “Pages of Life” written by Myeesha McPhee and recited by Anastacia Clarke and Thomeo Bastian, students of grade 9.
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