RICKETTS MARKS MILESTONE
TWENTY-five years ago, five Jamaicans — Tommy Ricketts, Malachi Smith, Tomlin Ellis, Shaka Bantuta and Calvin Mitchell — wanted to create a space where lovers of poetry could fellowship and share their works. The Poetry Society of Jamaica was born.
Today, as the society wraps up its silver anniversary year, Ricketts, the only founding member who is still active in the day-to-day happenings of the group, is overjoyed about the fruits which the seed planted 25 years ago has brought forth.
“It’s sometimes overwhelming to think that something which started out of a love for poetry has brought forth so many great things including a Musgrave medal. We never set out for all this. All we wanted was a space where lovers of the craft could share and we could encourage writers to better their craft,” he said.
Ricketts is also proud of the fact that in the lifetime of the society a Poet Laureate in Professor Mervyn Morris has been named.
“Many people are not aware of how supportive Mervyn has been in the early years of the society. He was a member of British Poetry Society and, in those formative years, we would go up to his house and he would share his magazines so we could get ideas on how to move our group forward. We were very clear from the onset that our monthly meetings would not be a variety concert, but rather maintain the primary focus of being a space where persons could enhance their literary skills.”
One of the yet-to-be-fulfilled dreams of the Ricketts-led society is to have a chapter of the Poetry Society of Jamaica in schools, from primary to tertiary.
“We find that many of our students are intimidated by literature as they see it as being foreign and by some dead, old, white people. Perhaps, it could get them to write our stories and even interpret the classics. We have been talking about this for well over 10 years, but the scope of this project is scaring the members of the Society.”
Ricketts and his team have already received the blessings of the National Association of Teachers of English, the Caribbean Examinations Council and the United Nations Education and Scientific Council.
“The plan is to use Jamaica as the pilot project and then take it to the wider Caribbean. We really want a national fervour to this, so we want to conceptualise a TV show with participants writing and performing their work and a winner announced. It would be connected to the literature syllabus and the show would coincide with exams so this would help other students who are studying the subject,” he explained.
The society is wrapping its year of celebrations on Tuesday with the monthly fellowship at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and performing Arts in St Andrew.
“This month will feature the work of Michael St George, one of the strong contingent of active Jamaican poets living in Canada. As usual there will be no meeting in December, but come January, the meeting which is held on the last Tuesday of every month will feature the new, fresh voices unearthed during 2014,” said Ricketts.