Anatol Rodgers Memorial Lecture Showcases Poetry as a Portal

26^th November 2023

Nassau, THE BAHAMAS — University of The Bahamas (UB) recently hosted the 18th Anatol Rodgers Memorial Lecture Series, showcasing the power and importance of poetry, with a thought-provoking discourse led by Lauren K. Alleyne, an award-winning Trinidadian-American poet and educator who focused on the topic, “The Quiet That Moves Us: Poetry as A Portal Between Worlds.”

The lecture series, which the Rodgers family has long supported, has emerged as a crucial platform for timely conversations and is facilitated by UB’s School of English Studies.

Alleyne emphasized that creative writing in general, and poetry in particular, is critical as a craft, discipline, practice, and a progenitor of literature. She asserted that poetry is thus an essential pathway to knowledge, truth, and integrity, core values of UB.

“My own working definition of poetry is that it is the marriage of mystery and mechanics,” said Alleyne. “And so, the ‘quiet’ of the poem is on the one hand, architectural. It’s built through line breaks through caesura, stanzaic arrangements, etcetera. The poem’s structure offers a space for ‘quiet’ to happen. On the other hand, the poem also holds the quiet of mystery, the quiet of prayer, contemplation of being in stillness. The poem creates a lyric space through this interaction of mystery and mechanics where we as readers can enter and linger.

“I would argue that the poem in creating this space and this stillness acts as a portal to mystery, to a space outside of our dailiness that we access to the poem’s unique alchemy.”

She focused on how poetry is essential in helping people experience language and the world in a deeper sense and explained that engaging with poetry forces individuals to exist outside their normal selves, challenging their usual ways of thinking and understanding.

“Poetry reminds us why we want to be alive, what we’re staying alive for,” said Alleyne. “And that’s not hubris, per se. If we extrapolate poetry to creative writing…our expressions of interiority, creativity, beauty, pain, the various and unique ways we experience our humanity, we have to agree, this is an essential part of being human. It’s worth pursuing, it’s worth doing.

Alleyne also praised UB and its School of English Studies for placing a special emphasis on incorporating more creative writing courses in Bahamian academia. UB currently offers three introductory creative writing courses, as well as a Minor in Creative Writing.

“This is a noble calling,” noted Alleyne. “This work in education, through which we provide students with opportunities, empower them to discover and live into their full potential. I think this is sacred work, so congratulations on 50 years of committing to it. I want to congratulate English Studies as well for the Minor in Creative Writing. It’s always heartening to know that university administrators are choosing to support departments as they try to facilitate this essential field of study.”

Chair of the School of English Studies and the Anatol Rodgers Memorial Lecture Committee, Dr. Peter Bailey, highlighted the institution’s commitment to national development through the infusion of more Creative Writing components in tertiary English pedagogy. This kind of focus is well placed considering that UB will soon celebrate its 50^th anniversary and continues to honour the legacy of Mrs. Anatol Rodgers, who contributed significantly to education in The Bahamas.

“In this year leading to the 50th anniversary of the founding of the University of The Bahamas, the faculty of English Studies is thinking of the potential of the humanities, particularly literary arts, to drive national development,” said Dr. Bailey. “This national development is something that Mrs. Anatol Rodgers advanced through her storied career through education, and is something that English Studies is trying to advance as well, certainly through creative writing. That’s where we’ve been putting a lot of our emphasis.”

Named in honour of Anatol Rodgers, a Bahamian Educator and the first female principal of the Government High School, the memorial lecture series was launched in 2006 as a collaborative initiative with the generous support of the Rodgers family and facilitated by the School of English Studies. Although she taught many subjects during her professional life, Mrs. Rodgers’s first love was English.

The event is now in its 18th year. Alleyne, this year’s speaker, serves as Executive Director of the Furious Flower Poetry Center and Professor of English at James Madison University. She is author of two collections Honeyfish (2019) and Difficult Fruit (2014); two chapbooks, Dawn in the Kaatskills and (Un)Becoming Gretel; and co-editor of Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry. Her work has been widely published in journals and anthologies internationally. She was also honoured with a US Artist Award nomination in 2023 and an NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Poetry (2020), and the Green Rose Prize from New Issues Press.

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Chartered on 10th November 2016, University of The Bahamas (UB) is a beacon for national transformation. Students are enrolled in the University of The Bahamas system which includes campuses and centres on New Providence, Grand Bahama, and San Salvador, as well as UB online education. UB’s diverse academic programmes, research engagements, athletics and leadership development experiences equip our students to become global citizens in a dynamic world. For more information, visit www.ub.edu.bs.