SAN­DRA L BLOOD

mindup.slblood@gmail.com

“My son, Aaron, is my biggest fan and al­so my biggest crit­ic of my work. He’s head­ing off to Uni­ver­si­ty abroad and will be dear­ly missed. I’m hap­py that he wit­nessed to­day,” said mul­ti­fac­eted artist, po­et, song­writer, now au­thor, Michelle Joy, who launched her first book of po­et­ry and art ti­tled Dance in the Rain, on Au­gust 5 at Arn­im’s Art Gal­le­ria Ltd, 27 Tra­garete Road, Wood­brook, PoS, shaped by dance, a read­ing, and book sign­ing.

The book is cur­rent­ly be­ing ex­hib­it­ed at the Gal­le­ria un­til Au­gust 19 along­side 43 oth­er artists’ works, form­ing an en­tire ex­hi­bi­tion that start­ed on the 2 ti­tled, De Gap – Where do you stand in the gap?.

Michelle Joy works with acrylic, wa­ter colour and mixed me­dia.

Mis­tress of Cer­e­monies, Her­mi­an Smart-Find­lay, wel­comed guests fol­lowed by the in­vo­ca­tion de­liv­ered by Owen Shade by way of vo­cals and pi­ano, then dived right in­to The Book Launch.

“The col­lec­tion of po­ems in­vites us to pause. Pause from the hus­tle and bus­tle of life, and en­cour­age to prac­tice in­ten­tion­al­i­ty,” as re­viewed by Smart-Find­lay. “Dance in the Rain di­rects us to stop, see, pay at­ten­tion, and take note.”

For­mer may­or of the City of Port-of-Spain, Murchin­son Brown, a few of Michelle Joy’s life­long friends, neigh­bours, work­ing col­leagues sin­gled out as Joy, Joan­na, Paula and Nan­cy, and son Aaron, were recog­nised. “These in­di­vid­u­als can tes­ti­fy to the fact that when Michelle asks to re­flect, it’s from her heart,” Smart-Find­lay an­nounced. “…this oc­ca­sion is one of cel­e­bra­tion. Michelle Joy is mul­ti­tal­ent­ed, she’s a pro­fes­sion­al phys­io­ther­a­pist…., she’s made the time to take us down a to­tal­ly dif­fer­ent part.”

Author of Dance in the Rain, Michelle Joy and son Aaron, after the book-signing ceremony.

Michelle Joy was then in­vit­ed to the lectern. She took guests through parts of her life as re­flect­ed through her “deep and stur­dy po­ems,” re-en­act­ed si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly in dance by Noelle Archer.

She spoke of the storm; whom she met; the im­pact; the re­lief; and the out­come, cov­er­ing el­e­ments of the po­ems, and al­so, took guests through the jour­ney to po­et­ry-writ­ing and the book as a means of clar­i­fy­ing why po­et­ry. “I’ve been writ­ing po­et­ry for most of my life, she ex­plained. “There’s some­thing that’s al­lur­ing and even med­i­ta­tive about words, rhyme and rhythm. Po­et­ry al­lows com­plex thoughts and sto­ries and easy space to re­side. Dance in the Rain is an ex­pe­ri­ence. No­tice the words on the page and pat­terns they form. Hear the beats. Lis­ten to in­stru­ments that pro­vide the back­ground mood….” She then end­ed with the ad­vice: “Take a breath; Hap­py read­ing.”

As a true ther­a­pist, guests said she brought joy and a mea­sure of heal­ing to their hearts. Apart from Dance in the Rain, Michelle Joy’s oth­er art pieces on ex­hib­it are Verb Med­i­ta­tion, Peb­ble Rain, Re­flec­tion of Her­sto­ry, Hill Steps, A Word Apart and Ma­trisse In­spired Sym­pho­ny.

The book’s de­scribed as “an in­ter­lude and mo­ment of qui­et re­flec­tion,” and is de­signed with the hope “to bring read­ers to a deep­er sense of self than be­fore the pages are turned.”

Pub­lished al­most two months ago and re­leased on Ama­zon, it’s avail­able in Kin­dle and pa­per­back, and lo­cal­ly at Pa­per Based Book­store, Nor­mandie Ho­tel, St Ann’s, PoS.

Ex­hi­bi­tion days and times: Mon­day to Fri­day: 9 am to 6 pm | Sat­ur­day: 9 pm to 3 pm | Clos­ing day: 9 am to 2 pm.