Bo­cas Cou­va suc­cess­ful­ly launched the Bo­cas Lit Fest’s 2026 se­ries of com­mu­ni­ty lit­er­ary and cul­tur­al fes­ti­vals on Sat­ur­day, Ju­ly 18, trans­form­ing the Lisas Gar­dens Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre in­to a vi­brant hub of sto­ry­telling, per­for­mance, mu­sic, and com­mu­ni­ty con­nec­tion.

Bo­cas Cou­va was the first of four one-day fes­ti­vals that will bring lit­er­ary ex­pe­ri­ences di­rect­ly in­to com­mu­ni­ties across Trinidad and To­ba­go, cel­e­brat­ing lo­cal writ­ers, per­form­ers, read­ers, and au­di­ences through an in­ti­mate pro­gramme of read­ings, work­shops, per­for­mances, and cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties. It was pre­sent­ed by Math­anex Trinidad.

Ac­cord­ing to a state­ment from Bo­cas, open­ing the fes­ti­val, Bo­cas Lit Fest Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor Geor­gia Pop­plewell reaf­firmed the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s com­mit­ment to mak­ing the lit­er­ary arts ac­ces­si­ble to every­one. “From our start in 2011, we’ve worked to cre­ate fes­ti­vals and pro­grammes that are for every­body. These com­mu­ni­ty fes­ti­vals al­low us to share writ­ers and their sto­ries with au­di­ences where they are, while cel­e­brat­ing the cre­ativ­i­ty that ex­ists with­in com­mu­ni­ties them­selves.”

Fes­ti­val-go­ers en­joyed read­ings by sev­er­al ac­claimed au­thors.

Chil­dren’s pro­gram­ming was a ma­jor high­light, with sto­ry­telling ses­sions led by Jack­son White, Ka­t­ri­na Khan-Roberts, Mi­lan Ro­many, Mi­ran­da Dookran, Shalon Kasha Joseph, Sal­im Ram­per­sad, CS Bin­nie, Crys­tal-Marie Sealy, and Michelle Govia, along­side a wide se­lec­tion of chil­dren’s books cu­rat­ed by Let’s Read, a Pup­pet Sto­ry­telling Work­shop led by Daw­sh­er Charles, “The Re­silient War­rior” and founder of Sur­vival Schol­ars, and read­ings from the Bo­cas Chil­dren’s Sto­ry­telling Car­a­van.

One of the day’s stand­out events was the in­au­gur­al Bo­cas Cou­va Youth Spo­ken Word Com­pe­ti­tion, which show­cased the tal­ent and cre­ativ­i­ty of youth from Cou­va and oth­er com­mu­ni­ties. Par­tic­i­pants ben­e­fit­ed from coach­ing by for­mer Na­tion­al Po­et­ry Slam fi­nal­ist Javaughn Forde be­fore pre­sent­ing orig­i­nal works in a live­ly com­pe­ti­tion host­ed by Jody White.

First place went to Denyce Bap­tiste; sec­ond place to Colleen Cleghorn and third to Lily Vil­lafana. The com­pe­ti­tion was judged by past Na­tion­al Po­et­ry Slam Win­ners, Kyle Her­nan­dez and Dene­ka Thomas, as well as writer and artist Por­tia Sub­ran.

An­oth­er au­di­ence favourite was Stand and De­liv­er, Bo­cas Lit Fest’s sig­na­ture open mic event, which wel­comed writ­ers of all ages and ex­pe­ri­ence lev­els to share orig­i­nal po­et­ry, sto­ries, and spo­ken word be­fore an en­thu­si­as­tic and sup­port­ive au­di­ence, re­in­forc­ing the fes­ti­val’s com­mit­ment to cre­at­ing space for every voice.