JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Spoken word in the spotlight

by

20140210

The Bo­cas Lit Fest her­alds the start of its 2014 Spo­ken Word sea­son, which will come to a close on the fi­nal night of the an­nu­al NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest on 27 April.

The three-part sea­son of work­shops, per­for­mance, and com­pe­ti­tions is un­der way with the Courts Bo­cas Speak Out Sec­ondary Schools Tour across five re­gions: Trinidad South, Cen­tral, East, West and To­ba­go.

Over the next few weeks, dozens of sec­ondary school stu­dents will take part in work­shops to ac­quire skills in per­for­mance po­et­ry and spo­ken word. They then move on to com­pete, through a screen­ing this month and a grand fi­nal in March, for the top prize of a trip to the world's most pres­ti­gious and pop­u­lar Spo­ken Word event in the USA, cour­tesy Courts.

A re­lease from the or­gan­is­ers said the work­shops will be led by the dy­nam­ic young po­ets of the 2 Cents Move­ment, who have been mak­ing a name for them­selves as ex­po­nents of the in­creas­ing­ly pop­u­lar form, which chal­lenges young peo­ple to ar­tic­u­late their thoughts cre­ative­ly.

U.WE Speak and USC Speak events that start­ed in Jan­u­ary and con­tin­ue in Feb­ru­ary com­prise the per­for­mance el­e­ment of the sea­son. They rep­re­sent the biggest Open Mic in T&T with around 200 peo­ple at­tend­ing each ses­sion. The event, es­tab­lished at UWI St Au­gus­tine in Oc­to­ber 2005 by Muham­mad Muwak­il, now of the Free­town Col­lec­tive, and Nku Davis, re­mains a com­pelling part of cam­pus life. U.WE Speak was ini­tial­ly formed to cre­ate space for the arts on the UWI cam­pus and Bo­cas and the 2 Cents Move­ment are col­lab­o­rat­ing to en­sure that stu­dents, promi­nent lo­cal mu­si­cians and po­ets con­tin­ue to par­tic­i­pate in the Open Mic events.

The pure­ly com­pe­ti­tion el­e­ment of the Spo­ken Word sea­son is the Vers­es Bo­cas Po­et­ry Slam, spon­sored by First Cit­i­zens. Start­ing this month and con­tin­u­ing through March, it con­cludes on the fi­nal night of the five-day NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest on 27 April. In 2013 the Po­et­ry Slam fi­nal drew a ca­pac­i­ty crowd to the fes­ti­val's clos­ing event and the win­ning per­for­mance by Crys­tal Skeete went vi­ral on YouTube with more than 69,000 hits. This year, First Cit­i­zens is in­creas­ing the size of the prize to re­flect the in­creas­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty of per­for­mance po­et­ry in T&T. The win­ner will take home $10,000, sec­ond place car­ries a $5,000 re­ward and third place, $3,000. The dai­ly Fes­ti­val Open Mic jam ses­sions, al­so sup­port­ed by First Cit­i­zens, will be host­ed by the 2 Cents Move­ment.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic can take part in these lunchtime events from April 23-27.

"We are very ex­cit­ed about this year's fes­ti­val be­cause we have ini­ti­at­ed projects to build a greater youth fol­low­ing and we ex­pect to see that re­flect­ed in the in­ter­est of the fes­ti­val," says Jean Claude Cour­nand, the Bo­cas Lit Fest youth out­reach co-or­di­na­tor and 2 Cents Move­ment di­rec­tor, who adds, "It's been a fan­tas­tic year. We've es­tab­lished a re­al­ly strong part­ner­ship with Bo­cas and we work to­geth­er through­out the year on a va­ri­ety of projects to build youth en­gage­ment with the Bo­cas brand."

Ma­ri­na Sa­landy-Brown, Bo­cas Lit Fest founder, says, "The events our or­gan­i­sa­tion is able to of­fer are made pos­si­ble on­ly be­cause of the spon­sor­ship of cor­po­rate T&T who see the val­ue of pro­mot­ing ef­fec­tive ways of self-ex­pres­sion among our cit­i­zens, es­pe­cial­ly the young. And this year UWI has al­so come on board in a big way for these events, mak­ing fa­cil­i­ties avail­able and pro­vid­ing much need­ed sup­port."

The NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest is an an­nu­al lit­er­ary fes­ti­val with Caribbean fo­cus and in­ter­na­tion­al scope, bring­ing to­geth­er read­ers, writ­ers, per­form­ers, and pub­lish­ers for a five-day cel­e­bra­tion of words and ideas.

At the heart of the NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest are a se­ries of read­ings by some of T&T's and the Caribbean's finest writ­ers of fic­tion and po­et­ry–from au­thors of books al­ready con­sid­ered con­tem­po­rary clas­sics to prizewin­ning new­com­ers.

The 2014 NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest will run from April 23 to 27 at the Na­tion­al Li­brary and Old Fire Sta­tion, Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain.

Dur­ing April, the NGC Bo­cas Chil­dren's Lit Fest will be launched with a na­tion­wide chil­dren's sto­ry­telling tour that kicks off in To­ba­go on March 29.

SPO­KEN WORD SCHED­ULE

?

FEB­RU­ARY (Courts Bo­cas Speak Out Work­shops & Screen­ings

U.WE/USC Speak, Vers­es Bo­cas Po­et­ry Slam au­di­tions)

Feb 13

USC, The Barn- USC Speak (Valen­tines Day Theme)–open to the pub­lic

Feb 15

North, Bish­op Anstey High School, Port-of-Spain

Feb 16

South, Na­pari­ma Girls High School, San Fer­nan­do

To­ba­go–date & venue to be con­firmed

Courts Bo­cas Sec­ondary School Po­et­ry Com­pe­ti­tion Screen­ing

Feb 18

UWI, Stu­dent Ac­tiv­i­ty Cen­tre

U.WE Speak (Car­ni­val theme: Rob­bers and Rub­bers)–open to the pub­lic

Feb 22 and 23: 8 am-6 pm

Nalis, Aber­crom­by Street, POS

Vers­es Bo­cas Po­et­ry Slam Au­di­tions–open to the pub­lic

MARCH (Courts Bo­cas Speak Out Sec­ondary School Fi­nals

VERS­ES Se­mi Fi­nals, U.WE/USC Speak)–all events open to the pub­lic

Mar 15

UWI, Daa­ga Hall

Vers­es Bo­cas Po­et­ry Slam–1st Se­mi Fi­nal

Mar 18

USC, The Barn

USC Speak

Mar 19

UWI, Stu­dent Ac­tiv­i­ty Cen­tre–U.WE Speak

Mar 20: 8 am-2 pm

UWI, Daa­ga Hall

Courts Bo­cas Sec­ondary School Po­et­ry Com­pe­ti­tion Fi­nals

Mar 22

UWI, Daa­ga Hall

Vers­es Bo­cas Po­et­ry Slam 2nd Se­mi Fi­nal

APRIL (Vers­es Bo­cas Po­et­ry Slam fi­nals, U.WE/USC Speak, Fes­ti­val Lunchtime Open Mic)–all events open to the pub­lic

April 7

USC, The Barn

USC Speak

April 9

UWI, Stu­dent Ac­tiv­i­ty Cen­tre–U.WE Speak

April 24 - 27

Nalis, Aber­crom­by Streeet Ar­cade–Fes­ti­val Lunchtime Open Mic

April 27

Cen­tral Bank Au­di­to­ri­um

Vers­es Bo­cas Po­et­ry Slam Fi­nals


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored