Bahamian poets rock the house at Caribbean Literary Festival

A welcome slice of Bahamian artistry was brought resoundingly to life at the National Library in Trinidad at the 2012 Bocas Literary Festival in Trinidad & Tobago, when Bahamian writers Nicolette Bethel and Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming shared their poems with infectious gusto, passion and intensity.

Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming read first, quickly turning the mood electric and infectiously upbeat with her work. Even when she shared poems that gave dreadful pause, such as the incest-stained “Full Moon Healing”, I couldn’t help but be forcefully struck by the power of her culturally syncretic imagery, of visions of saris on silken skin versus the defiling of sexual innocence, of ruminations on blood, bindis, the mother moon.......

Nicolette Bethel wondered a little about how she could possibly follow gracefully after her colleague’s fiery renditions, but she needn’t have been even remotely troubled. I have had the good fortune to read several of Bethel’s poems online, in journals and magazines, and I’ve been awed at the clarity and strength of her imagery, the deftness in construction of her verses. Hearing them read aloud by the poet herself proved to be indulgent icing on an already sumptuous cake........

Left: Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming Bottom: Right: Dr.Nicolette Bethel

Click HERE to read full article by Shivanee Ramlochan.