Michelle Loubon

Read­ing the eu­lo­gy, vet­er­an jour­nal­ist Lennox Grant boast­ed his child­hood friend the late jour­nal­ist ex­tra­or­di­naire, Kei­th Bernard Smith earned "icon­ic sta­tus" in T&T jour­nal­ism. Hun­dreds of mourn­ers shared Grant's view at the cel­e­bra­tion of Smith's life and il­lus­tri­ous writ­ing ca­reer at The Cathe­dral of the Im­mac­u­late Con­cep­tion, In­de­pen­dence Square, Port-of-Spain, on Feb­ru­ary 12. Renowned for his col­umn in the Dai­ly Ex­press, Smith, a doyen among jour­nal­ists, died on Feb­ru­ary 8. On Thurs­day, Smith's work was ven­er­at­ed again at "the fes­ti­val of words." A pam­phlet billed him as "news­pa­per­man ex­tra­or­di­naire." Oc­ca­sion was the launch of the Bo­cas Lit Fest (The Trinidad and To­ba­go Lit­er­ary Fes­ti­val) at the Na­tion­al Li­brary, Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain. Among the dis­tin­guished cit­i­zens who read from Smith's cor­pus were mu­si­col­o­gist Pat Bish­op, vet­er­an mas man Pe­ter Min­shall, jour­nal­ist Raoul Pan­tin and Guardian colum­nist BC Pires. Bo­cas Lit Fest is billed as the first ma­jor lit­er­ary fes­ti­val held in T&T and the South­ern Caribbean.

Com­ment­ing on the fes­ti­val, founder and di­rec­tor Ma­ri­na Sa­landy-Brown said: "It is not meant to be elit­ist. It is meant to be fun. I thought the read­ings were so beau­ti­ful­ly read and act­ed. We want it to be good in every way." De­scrib­ing Av­o­ca­do (de zabo­ca) as "a de­light­ful­ly writ­ten piece," Min­shall said he "re­mem­bered laugh­ing out loud to my­self, and, what­ev­er spir­its filled the room." Pan­tin said, "The start of the read­ing for Kei­th Smith was a good idea. "The four read­ings cov­ered a wide range of the grass­roots ma­te­r­i­al that Kei­th dealt with. I am sure that Kei­th, wher­ev­er he is, must be smil­ing from ear to ear."

He paid ku­dos to Sa­landy-Brown for her ini­tia­tive. He said: "I think the fes­ti­val was an ex­cel­lent idea."

Renowned for Salt and School­mas­ter, Earl Lovelace said, "I think the ho­n­our­ing or recog­ni­tion of Kei­th was im­por­tant. I think he was one of our re­al cred­i­ble per­son­al­i­ties." Vis­it­ing Ja­maican writer Lor­na Good­i­son la­belled the pieces as "mar­vel­lous." She said: "It is a won­der­ful thing."

Chil­dren urged to read

Dur­ing a tele­vi­sion in­ter­view on CNC3, Prof Fun­so Aiye­ji­na, Dean of the Fac­ul­ty of Hu­man­i­ties and Ed­u­ca­tion, said there was a thrust to­ward en­cour­ag­ing young read­ers. Spe­cial seg­ments of the fes­ti­val have been ded­i­cat­ed to the younger gen­er­a­tion in a bid to cre­ate a lit­er­ate, en­light­ened so­ci­ety. Com­ment­ing on the move to awak­en the chil­dren to the pow­er and majesty of the writ­ten word, Sa­landy-Brown said: "It's a full pro­gramme for chil­dren to match the adults. We will be go­ing all around the coun­try." Apart from the read­ings, she said there would be films and work­shops ded­i­cat­ed to the chil­dren. The chil­dren would al­so learn about Caribbean writ­ers like Mar­tin Carter, Sam Selvon and po­ets like Claude Mc Kay and Evan Jones.

Fes­ti­val high­lights

Among those present at the launch were vet­er­an jour­nal­ists Er­rol Pil­grim, Lennox Grant, Ex­press colum­nist Judy Ray­mond, Guardian colum­nist Mark Lyn­der­say and his wife Don­na. They were joined by chore­o­g­ra­ph­er Car­ol La Chapelle, writ­ers Lisa Allen-Agos­ti­ni, An­tho­ny Milne and Col­in Robin­son. Apart from the Smith trib­utes, there were mount­ed dis­plays fea­tur­ing the work of Caribbean writ­ers like Derek Wal­cott. As the fes­ti­val un­folds, mu­si­cian Gillian Moor and Muhammed Muwakhil will be co­or­di­nat­ing the open mic ses­sions to of­fer a plat­form for bud­ding writ­ers and bib­lio­philes. Sum­ming up the fes­ti­val, Sa­landy-Brown said: "It is nei­ther a book fair nor a con­fer­ence. The events are for every­one, from bud­ding writ­ers to avid read­ers and school­child­ren." The fes­ti­val ends to­day.