^{Writer: Jean Lowrie- Chin}

Congratulations to celebrated poet, editor, musician and storyteller Professor Kwame Dawes on his investiture as Poet Laureate of Jamaica last week. He is the son of novelist and Institute of Jamaica Executive Director Neville Dawes. The Jamaica College graduate was moved by a presentation by students of his alma mater at the event. He holds a BA in Literatures in English at UWI and as a Commonwealth Scholar earned a PhD at the University of New Brunswick.

Professor Dawes has won prestigious awards for his over 30 collections of poetry and is a co-founder of the Calabash International Poetry Festival. The Musgrave Silver Medallist  is a professor of Literary Arts at Brown University and lecturer in the Master of Fine Arts Programme at Pacific University in Oregan.

Jamaica’s First Poet Laureate was Tom Redcam (his nom-de-plume was his surname spelled backwards – MacDermot), who was so honoured posthumously, from 1910 to 1933. J.E.C McFarlane served from 1953 to his death in 1962. After it was re-instituted in 2014, we have been blessed with legendary Poet Laureates: Mervyn Morris, Lorna Goodison and Olive Senior.

I remember the late Ralph Thompson advocating the teaching of poetry, pointing out that when we develop imagination, people will have the ability to discern consequences before endangering themselves. Besides the grandeur of great lines, what better reason is there to teach and enjoy poetry?

^{Source: Jamaica Observer}