In ho­n­our of T&T's 50th An­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence, six of the coun­try's emerg­ing po­ets from the Cir­cle of Po­et T&T re­cent­ly ex­plored the com­po­si­tion of Ekphras­tic-styled com­po­si­tions ref­er­enc­ing promi­nent lo­cal per­son­al­i­ties, artis­tic sculp­tures, paint­ings and flo­ra to high­light how these have helped shape our so­cial and cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty through the last 50 years.

The po­ets were the re­cip­i­ents of in-depth and in­sight­ful tute­lage in the art and style of po­et­ry writ­ing when they at­tend­ed the Quin­qua­ge­nary – Search­ing for the Po­et­ry work­shop from Ju­ly 27 to 29, host­ed by An­son Gon­za­lez, Po­et Lau­re­ate of Port-of-Spain, at his res­i­dence, Sap­phire House, in Diego Mar­tin. The house was oc­cu­pied by Gon­za­lez and his wife, Sylvia, in 1962, mere weeks be­fore the coun­try be­came an in­de­pen­dent na­tion.

Through­out the next 50 years the house was host to dozens of Caribbean artists in­clud­ing Gor­don Rohlehr, K Julie Pearn, Ken­neth Ram­c­hand, Un­dine and Neville Giusep­pi, Je­re­my Poynt­ing, Joseph Cum­mings, Kr­ish­na A. Sama­roo, Ann Walm­s­ley, Earl Lovelace, Michael Als, Vish­nu Go­sine, Mer­le Hodge, Vic­tor D Ques­tel, Tony Kell­man, Frank Bir­bals­ingh, Jan Carew, James T Liv­ingston, Clif­ford Sealy, Fun­so Aiye­ji­na, Lloyd King, Willi Chen, Glenn Roopc­hand, As­tor John­son, Pearl Ein­tou Springer, Ma­ri­na Omowale Maxwell, Pearl D Grif­fith, Ken Par­masad, Mar­guerite Watts, Therese MIlls, Neila Todd, Christo­pher Laird, John Robert Lee and Cyril St Lewis.

Sap­phire House was al­so the home of a mod­est print­ery from which Gon­za­lez print­ed and pub­lished dozens of tomes con­tain­ing the po­ems and writ­ings of sev­er­al sons and daugh­ters of the soil and the wider Caribbean, his own re­flec­tive and rev­o­lu­tion­ary po­ems and his so­cial­ly-im­pact­ing pub­li­ca­tion, The New Voic­es.

Quin­qua­ge­nary-Search­ing for the Po­et­ry of­fers four of the re­flec­tive po­ems that were "forged from the love of lib­er­ty," as a 50th birth­day gift to the cit­i­zens of T&T.

SAP­PHIRE AT FIFTY

(Ded­i­cat­ed to Sap­phire House in Diego Mar­tin)

Con­ceived in the mind of a pi­o­neer­ing pa­tri­arch

Born in an Au­gust time of In­de­pen­dence

Nour­ished on the premise of pro­vid­ing for a na­tion

Sap­phire ar­rived in the midst of much love

Weight­ed by tests to prove her strength

Stretched far be­yond her girl­ish fig­ure

Strained with the move­ments of grow­ing life with­in her

Sap­phire has borne much for love

Host­ess to for­eign bod­ies-and souls

Nur­tur­er of a nest filled with dreams

Provider of peace to weary and bro­ken spir­its

Sap­phire has done much for love

Catch­ment for a stream of ideas and ide­olo­gies

Muse for cre­ative in­tent and pur­suits

Lis­ten­er to New Voic­es with mes­sages of hope

Sap­phire has en­cour­aged much love

Stand­ing at the gate­way to her gold­en years

Sus­pend­ed in a time of tran­si­tion

Sap­phire stands with grat­i­tude for her role in a na­tion's his­to­ry

Se­cure that her fu­ture will be full of much love.

Char­maine Dais­ley