PHILIPSBURG:--- The Creative Writing and Performance workshops held over the weekend in honor of World Poetry Day was deemed by organizers to be very informative and a success.
The workshops which were organized by Foundation 5 Square Miles St. Martin, Conscious Agricultural Awakening Foundation (CAAF) and the St. Maarten National Commission of UNESCO were conducted at the University of St. Martin and had about 20 participants.
The first workshop, held in the morning, concerned the creative writing process and was facilitated by Fabian Badejo. Badejo stressed the importance of reading and writing for would-be and developing writers. Badejo had the participants practice and share their creative prose writing skills.
Badejo stated that while it was indeed World Poetry Day and there was the need to honor the island's poets, veteran and up-and-coming, it was also important to encourage the writing of prose and in particular novels on the island.
His exercises often led to heated discussions about use of mother language, terminologies concerning the northern and southern sides of the island and national identity. Badejo said that it important that a writer is comfortable with these issues in order for them to translate these authentically to their readers.
"If you make it real to you, then you will write it as if it is real and it will be authentic," Badejo stressed.
The second workshop was held in the afternoon hours and was conducted by Clara Reyes, co-Director of National Institute of the Arts. Reyes started with movement exercises, getting participants warmed up and ready to performance. She had the performers focus on warming up all parts of their bodies and get in tune with the space around them. She next moved on to breathing exercises and then vocal warm-ups. Finally all poets who were willing to read had their delivery assessed and received pointers from Reyes on how to present their poems in a stronger manner.
"In the arts you are vulnerable, you are naked, you want people to enjoy your work so that leaves you open to critiques, from your audience, from yourself, but you have to go through the process and remember that you were given an amazing gift. The life of an artist is not easy, first of all people often just don't get you, secondly they often don't get what you are doing and thirdly they often really think you are just having too much fun and don't understand the hard work behind it. Create anyway and give yourself permission to be your most creative, most amazingly awesome selves. Arts give you wings, use them," Reyes said.
The organizers of the event said that they were pleased with the way in which both workshops were conducted, but would have liked to see more participants show up.
"We had planned for between 30-40 participants, so we were like 5 off our lowest expectations, so in the future we are going to shoot for that 40 participant mark, because we know that St. Maarten has so much talent, especially concerning poetry and yes, even concerning prose" Lysanne Charles, founder and president of Foundation 5 Square Miles St. Martin said.
Charles said that her foundation in collaboration with CAAF had a few more activities planned for the year and encouraged young people to come out to the Soualigan Fyah: Youth Poetry & Spoken Word Sessions at the Philipsburg Jubilee Library, held every last Friday of the month. The next session is scheduled for Friday, May 25.