Bahamian poet heads to 2012 Olympics

Thu, May 31st 2012, 01:03 PM

Bahamian poet Christian Campbell

From Ireland's Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney to Kim Jong-il's exiled former court poet Jang Jin Seong, hundreds of poets from around the world are set to gather on the banks of the Thames this summer in an attempt to recreate the poetic spirit of the ancient Olympic Games in what is being called the biggest gathering of poets in world history – Poetry Parnassus.

Representing The Bahamas is poet Christian Campbell and he will be participating in this week-long series of poetic events at the end of June 2012 led by the Southbank Centre's artist-in-residence Armitage and artistic director Jude Kelly and inspired by epinicians, poetry commissioned as part of the ancient Olympic Games in Greece. It will see poets, rappers, storytellers and praise singers reading their work in more than 50 languages, from Haitian creole to Maori, with the event to open as 100,000 poems are dropped from a helicopter on to the waiting crowd.

Thousands of nominations were received from the public for the best poet in their country, with a panel including the poet Simon Armitage and other experts whittling this down to find one poet from each of the 204 competing Olympic nations. One hundred and forty poets, from Kazakhstan's 24-year-old Akerke Mussabekova to 83-year-old Anise Koltz from Luxembourg, have already confirmed attendance at the festival, with the quest now to pin down writers from the remaining 64 Olympic countries.

Click HERE for full article on Christian's participation in the Guardian.

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