Poets honour Miss Lou
IT would now appear that whenever pioneering local poets are being lauded Miss Lou is always included.
As was the case at the recent staging of the first Jamaica Poetry Festival, the honour was repeated last Wednesday.
On the first occasion, the Poetry Festival was staged in tribute to Miss Lou as well as Marcus Garvey and Mikey Smith, while last Wednesday, the Poemtry Industry Network (PIN), which for almost 10 years has been acknowledging poetry pioneers, honoured Bennett and Mikey Smith.
However, at the latter event, their names were used to brand the awards given to an institution.
“The Nature Preservation Foundation will be the recipient of the Miss Lou and Mikey Smith awards,” Ras Rodd, the CEO of the Dub Traffickers arm of PIN told the Observer.
“In 2002, we, Dub Traffickers under the Poemtry Industry Network, launched the Poetic Pioneers Awards which is a celebration of poets and institutions, written audio and visual expressions,” Rodd explained.
The NPF is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) which holds a 49-year lease on the Royal Botanical Gardens of Hope, popularly known as Hope Gardens, and the Hope Zoo, where the monument marking Poets Corner established by Edna Manley in the 1950s is erected.
“When Hurricane Ivan came we cleaned up Poets Corner at Hope Gardens and donated equipment. In 2004, we revised the fourth Ceremony of Poets and then in 2009 Mervyn Morris was honoured at Poets Corner,” Rodd added.
He then stressed: “For poets it’s a landmark, and hence, with all the developments going on, there must be something nationalistic equally… so in a private function at the office of NPF we will present the two plagues to Robert Lalor who is the present CEO at the Nature Preservation Foundation.”
Speaking of Miss Lou, Rass Rodd, himself a dub poet exponent, said. “I personally recognised her poems. Poetry has its standard, so in truth and in fact it can be noted that pretty much, her writings are not poetry. So we focus on poems and the work that she has done.”
Had she been alive, Miss Lou would be celebrating her 92nd birthday today.
