NASSAU, BAHAMAS – L.W. Young Junior High School joined poets around the globe on Monday, March 21, in celebration of World Poetry Day 2022.
Under the college’s new pavilion, students and teachers celebrated at the present time by sharing their creative abilities through poetry, recitals, music, choral speaking and languages.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) founded at the present time in 1999 during its 30th General Conference in Paris. The day is about 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 comparable to theatre, dance, music and painting, and lift the visibility of poetry within the media”.
L.W. Young students perform at a special assembly for World Poetry Day. (BIS Photos/Patrick Hanna)
Education minister Glenys Hanna-Martin
L.W. Young students perform at a special assembly for World Poetry Day. (BIS Photos/Patrick Hanna)
Bodine Johnson
L.W. Young students perform at a special assembly for World Poetry Day. (BIS Photos/Patrick Hanna)
Ambassador Hope Strachan
Minister of Education and Technical & Vocational Training Glenys Hanna-Martin led the list of dignitaries on the event. Also present were former MP and Cabinet minister Hope Strachan, Ambassador and Everlasting Delegate to UNESCO; Lorraine Armbrister, Everlasting 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 native cultural icons.
Strachan gave remarks on behalf of the director of UNESCOs Cluster Office for the Caribbean, Saadia Beatriz Sanchez Vegas.
Briefly remarks, Hanna-Martin told the scholars that poetry begins with a blank page, for which they’re the architects, and likened it to the development of a constructing.
“Like a constructing, a poem is crafted within the imagination, it’s polished, painted, but words are used because the raw material for the development,” she said.
“The top product is a gorgeous piece of art. The creative imagination is a spot for freedom. Freedom — an unending expanse. Your creative imagination has no boundaries and it belongs exclusively to you.”
The minister urged the scholars to search out their place of freedom of their creative imagination and tap into their creative energy to encourage, touch, move and excite the human spirit. By request,, Victoria Smith read the poem “I Consider in Me By” written by Deputy everlasting secretary Donovan Turnquest.
Other presentations included: “The Words I Speak” written and presented by Bodine Johnson, Education Officer; “I’m 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.
