{"id":1044,"date":"2001-06-06T21:33:28","date_gmt":"2001-06-06T21:33:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/?p=1044"},"modified":"2015-05-12T21:33:50","modified_gmt":"2015-05-12T21:33:50","slug":"st-martins-lasana-m-sekou-performs-poetry-and-workshops-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/2001\/06\/06\/st-martins-lasana-m-sekou-performs-poetry-and-workshops-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Martin\u2019s Lasana M. Sekou performs poetry, and workshops in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. MARTIN (June 6, 2001) <\/strong>– St. Martin\u2019s author Lasana M. Sekou returned home this week following a tour of poetry recitals and literature workshops in the South African cities of Durban and Johannesburg from May 28 to June 3, 2001.<\/p>\n

Sekou headlined the opening night of the Poetry Africa 2001 festival at the University of Natal\u2019s Sneddon Theatre with new poems and earlier internationalist pieces. \u201cThe opportunity to read in the South Africa that I have long written about; the powerful audience response, especially to the poem \u2018In Berlin,\u2019 and the touching response to \u2018Yebo,\u2019 which was a home-coming poem, made for a tremendous experience,\u201d says Sekou.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was my pilgrimage to the Motherland and the fellow poets and scholars at the Poetry Africa 2001 were some of the finest and positively most competitive that I\u2019ve had the honor to work with.\u201d The other opening night poets were former Columbia University visiting scholar Yvette Christians\u00eb (USA) and head of the University of Ghana\u2019s English department Dr. Kofi Anyidoho (Ghana)-both published authors and literary scholars. Thirty poets from countries such as South Africa, Nigeria, Israel, New Zealand, The Netherlands, France, Switzerland, England, Canada, the USA, and Guyana took part in the festival\u2019s nightly recitals, daily workshops and school visits.<\/p>\n

Sekou participated in literature workshops and motivational talks with students at Wingen Heights Secondary School, the Orient Islamic School, and the journalism department of Sultan Technikon college, with young scholars at the University of Natal, and a poetry club at the BAT Centre, all in Durban, the east coast city that has hosted Poetry Africa for the last five years. \u201cI spoke about writing and publishing in general; literature and the media in St. Martin and the Caribbean; and the obscenity of colonialism still being a fact in St. Martin.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other poets visited and work-shopped at venues such as disadvantaged schools, an orphanage for street children, a prison, book launches, and in a closed forum with educators. \u201cOur host, the Centre for Creative Arts at the University of Natal, its director Peter Rorvik and his team, managed a tough job with grace. Many of the participants thought that this was their most intensive conference because of the amount of workshops in addition to the main readings. But who could refuse when the youth is involved, when we knew of the historical and intense nation re-building process going on in South Africa, and seeing how Poetry Africa was reaching out to the entire city.\u201d<\/p>\n

On June 3 Poetry Africa held a recital in Johannesburg and Sekou, along with Palestinian poet\/scholar Nidaa Khoury, Guyana\u2019s David Dabydeen, Zimbabwe\u2019s Chirikure Chirikure, Nigeria\u2019s Remi Raji, and Canada\u2019s Sheri-D Wilson were among the 12 visiting poets selected to d\u00e9but the festival in that city which became a household name in St. Martin and around the world during the struggle against apartheid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ST. MARTIN (June 6, 2001) – St. Martin\u2019s author Lasana M. Sekou returned home this week following a tour of poetry recitals and literature workshops in the South African cities of Durban and Johannesburg from May 28 to June 3, 2001. Sekou headlined the opening night of the Poetry Africa 2001 festival at the University […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-2001"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1044"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1045,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1044\/revisions\/1045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}