Poe Tree Barbados a Spoken Word enterprise, staged its signature event entitled “ Womanhood: The Power We Carry: An evening dedicated to exploring and celebrating the strength, resilience, and stories of womanhood” recently at Bean and Bagel 2.0, Rockley, Christ Church.
The all-female cast – 19 of them – used spoken word and performance to herald compelling proclamations to the wider community about themselves and their expectations. The more 150 patrons left with deep satisfaction that their decision to brave the heavy showers to be part of the experience was not in vain.
Co-founder La Shawna Griffith was quite happy with the event, which was also produced by cofounder Stonewithcupid.
“I think everyone walked away fulfilled and that it is something they want to come back to. They asked me to do part 2, but we will see,” Griffith said with a chuckle.
“We recognise that we wanted to have spoken word artistes and musicians to have a night just four days shy of Mothers Day to celebrate all that is female in the arts,” said Griffith during a brief interview during her busy schedule; being one of the performing poets.
The attendance underscored Griffith’s belief that “there is a demand for having a nice time, having clean art in this space”.
Artistes connected with the audience during the session and appealed to each member to celebrate their strength and uniqueness.
Those taking the mic included Frank Collymore Literary Endowment winner The Summer Story teller Linda M Deane with a medley of her work calling on women to honour their womanhood, Ebonee Carter with a nuanced piece My body is an open wound; Taitu Hero’s provocative Mango Season; Empress Zingha whose pieces comprised a tribute to the late culturist Sonia Williams; Wanica Durant doing Mind Trip, SeSe Nova doing The Stain and the Steel among other contributors. The show was enhanced by performances of singers Ayana John, Zoe and pannist Rojenna Holligan.
Tinge of emotion
Griffith, with a tinge of emotion in her voice, said it was an honour to bestow well known Nailah Folami Imoja (née Charmaine Gill), with the ninth Poe Tree Barbados Griot Award.
Nailah is well known to the literary family.
She is a winner of Barbados’ Frank Collymore Literary Endowment Competition 2024, Bermuda’s Writer in Residence 2025, a Barbadian/British novelist, poet, spoken word artist, and educator.
She brings more than three decades of teaching experience (from kindergarten teacher to university tutor) to the platform.
She is author of numerous novellas including Colourblind, To Protect & Serve and Fantasy Fulfilled.
Griffith described Nailah “as someone who mothers a lot of us in our art form and was happy to give her, the third female, the award”.
In explaining the concept of the ninth award presentation, Griffith said Poe Tree was started on February 28, 2024.
“Each month that we have a signal event, thus far we have given out one of our awards,” she said.
(JS)
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