By L.K. Hewlett
St. Kitts Reporter
As part of the Rotary Club of Liamuiga’s week of activities held to celebrate the visit of their twin club Rotary Club of Union County Georgia, the organisation hosted a night of poetry reading at Sugar Bay Club this Tuesday.
Many of the federation’s noted authors and poets read excerpts from their published works as well as excerpts from books by other Caribbean writers.
Unoma Allen gave the visitors a brief but comprehensive presentation about the history of St. Kitts; its culture, language, food, people, and ancestry. She encouraged the three men to ‘take back’ a little of St. Kitts and proceeded to teach them some Kittitian dialect.
Schneidman Warner provided some amusement when he read from two of his original poems, ‘In the still of the night’ and ‘He met her today’. Mandinga, a rastafarian poet from the island of Montserrat also read two original poems and said that poetry gave him an unexplainable joy.
Claire Norwood, read an excerpt from Antiguan writer Arthur Kincaid entitled ‘Lucy’ which spoke about a young Caribbean woman struggling to find herself and to fit in after moving to the United States. Norwood is a radio show host living in Nevis, who reads segments from various books over the airwaves.
Nevisian author Clayton Huggins read a piece from his book ‘Sky blue roof’, in which he reminisced about different persons and places in his childhood. Creighton Pension rendered two pieces of his original works, ‘I wish I could emancipate you’ and ‘Preoccupation with time’, an amusing but relatable poem about people’s obsession with time.
Lorna Callender, wife of the late Timothy Callender, read from one of the Barbadian’s acclaimed books, ‘Tales from the Caribbean, historical and hysterical’. The piece, ‘Grandfather Willy and Mr. Hitler’ was charming and indeed hysterical as it told of a Barbadian war veteran capturing the notorious and villainous political leader.
Bob Ramie, president of the Union County Rotaract Club thanked the members of the St. Kitts chapter for the wonderful experience. He said he had learned a lot about the island and its people in the short time that he had been here. The three-member group arrived in St. Kitts on Monday and have been engaged in a number of projects such island tours, visits to several Liamuiga projects and a viewing of a Library exhibition. On Wednesday the team made a presentation at a Rotary Club of St. Kitts meeting on the topic ‘Higher Education and the Young Professional’. They also set up a health fair at Independence Square in the afternoon where the general public got blood sugar and blood pressure testing done free of cost. The group also participated in a luncheon meeting on Thursday, followed by a cocktail reception this Friday evening. The Rotarians are due to return to Georgia tomorrow Saturday.
