Joan Dayal, owner of Paper Based Bookshop at The Normandie in St Ann's, welcomed a capacity crowd to the store's first Tea Time Poetry event on October 20.
The audience members quietly sipped from their cups, nibbled at their pastries and listened intently as each of the five poets presented selections from their work.
Paper Based, a bookshop that deals heavily in selling and supporting Caribbean writing, celebrated its 25th anniversary on March 3. Dayal said the idea for a tea and poetry reading series, one that would feature the local talent of both established and promising writers, had been brewing for some time.
Young Trinidadian poet and artist Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné began the readings, sharing poems that have been accepted for her forthcoming poetry collection. Holding the gathering spellbound from her first word to her last, Boodoo-Fortuné read lines from pieces that spoke of nature, darkness and human frailty. She was followed by the Tobago-based writer and documentary filmmaker Alex de Verteuil, who is the co-author of Echo of Basho: Haiku Voices of the Caribbean, published in 2007.
Giving credit to Tobago as the primary source of inspiration for many of his poems, de Verteuil also treated the attendees to selections from his prose, transporting the mood from quietly thoughtful to overflowing with laughter. Sarah Beckett, a Trinidadian filmmaker and artist, took to the podium next, sharing poems from diverse backgrounds and giving thanks to multiple sources of inspiration. Among these pieces was a poem in remembrance of Andre Tanker, as well as work from Cloud Country, which she described as an odyssey.
Following Beckett was Chadd Cumberbatch, a Montserratian writer, who read from his collection of poetry published in 2010, Ya Ya Surfeit. His introductory poem of a man who has had his love rejected kept the audience in stitches.
Cumberbatch described his experiences at the Cropper Foundation's resident workshop as life-changing, adding that his time spent there was heavily influential on his growth as a writer.
The final poet of the evening, Trinidadian journalist and blogger Andre Bagoo, sustained the attention and interest of the audience from the lines of his first poem, How to Put a Cat into a Hypnotic Trance.
Bagoo read several pieces from his poetry collection Trick Vessels, which was published in March this year, and launched at the second Bocas Lit Fest in April. Trick Vessels, Echo of Basho and Ya Ya Surfeit are all available at Paper Based.
