Zahra Gor­don

On Sep­tem­ber 29, T&T will join a glob­al move­ment when Po­et­ic Vibes hosts the lo­cal leg of 100 Thou­sand Po­ets for Change. The day of ac­tiv­i­ties will take place in Bel­mont at The Cloth Pro­pa­gan­da Space, Erthig Road, from 4–6 pm, and the Trinidad The­atre Work­shop, Jern­ing­ham Av­enue, from 6.30 pm–9 pm. It will in­clude mu­si­cal per­for­mances, art ex­hi­bi­tions, fea­tured speak­ers and, of course, po­et­ry read­ings. There will al­so be in­ter­ac­tive ac­tiv­i­ties that call for au­di­ence par­tic­i­pa­tion and group con­ver­sa­tion. The theme for the lo­cal event is Chang­ing the Con­ver­sa­tion on Peace. Po­et­ic Vibes' founder Rachael Col­ly­more has asked par­tic­i­pants to con­tribute work on en­vi­ron­men­tal, po­lit­i­cal and so­cial change. "See­ing that we are cel­e­brat­ing 50 years of in­de­pen­dence, this event comes at a fit­ting time. So­cial change for me is about mak­ing a pos­i­tive im­pact in our so­ci­ety by words and deeds," she said. "If we can get young peo­ple to speak out and con­tribute to im­prov­ing our so­ci­ety and by ex­ten­sion, the world, then we're do­ing our job. It's all about growth and de­vel­op­ment through the arts." 100 Thou­sand Po­ets for Change was launched last year by Micheal Rothen­berg from Big Bridge, a pub­lish­ing com­pa­ny ded­i­cat­ed to peace and sus­tain­abil­i­ty. The glob­al ini­tia­tive has grown to in­clude more than 100 par­tic­i­pat­ing coun­tries and over 700 events. Oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties host­ed world­wide in­clude peace­ful demon­stra­tions, work­shops and flash mobs on com­mu­ni­ty-spe­cif­ic is­sues. In Ja­maica, a week-long street dub fes­ti­val will ad­dress is­sues af­fect­ing chil­dren such as pover­ty and il­lit­er­a­cy, while in New York the Oc­cu­py Wall Street Po­et­ry group will host a se­ries of read­ings. Blog pages were cre­at­ed on the or­gan­i­sa­tion's Web site for each event by city and coun­try and will be archived by Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty.

Col­ly­more said al­though peace was im­por­tant to the dis­course on crime, it was of­ten left out of the con­ver­sa­tion. "We live in a very fast-paced and com­pet­i­tive world that is dri­ven by mon­ey. And while we are talk­ing about progress and in­no­va­tion, peo­ple are dy­ing, crime is ram­pant. The mes­sage of peace is im­por­tant to the con­ver­sa­tion where progress as a so­ci­ety, as a na­tion, as a coun­try is con­cerned," she said. Po­et­ic Vibes is al­so the host of the art, jazz and po­et­ry se­ries Syn­er­gia that boasts such for­mer per­form­ers as Free­town Col­lec­tive, Vaugh­nette Big­ford, Fitzroy Hoyte, the Mikhail Sal­cedo Quin­tet and Nz­ing­ha Job. Col­ly­more said the event was re­al­ly about love. "I haven't re­al­ly giv­en it (ac­tivism) thought, but if that means ac­ti­vat­ing pos­i­tive think­ing, build­ing the arts through what we do, then by all means. The con­ver­sa­tion of peace is the pre­cur­sor to ac­ti­vat­ing change. But more im­por­tant­ly, if we can show love, that's where the heal­ing be­gins," she said. The event is free but do­na­tions will be ac­cept­ed and re­fresh­ments will be on sale. Find Po­et­ic Vibes on Face­book or vis­it www.100tpc.org for more in­for­ma­tion.