The National Theatre of Ghana (NTG) in partnership with the Poetry Association of Ghana (PAG) has commemorated this year’s World Poetry Day with students of Kinbu Secondary School and Pat Goshen Academy, in Accra.
The Day, on the theme, ‘Standing on the shoulders of giants’ is a day set aside by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to celebrate linguistic expressions, the beauty of works, and the power of poetry.
Madam Amy Frimpong, Executive Director, NTG, said each year, the Theatre tried to get more people to gain interest in poetry, and this they had done basically with students.
She said, ‘what we have done over the years is to focus on Senior High Schools, to build the interest of students by sending poets to the schools and giving them the chance to either write or read their own poetry.’
The Executive Director noted the theme for the celebration each year was chosen by UNESCO, and everyone was expected to rally around it, saying, ‘so we have chosen to put
ourselves up, bring these wonderful poets to the schools so that they can serve as giants for the students to stand on their shoulders to excel.’
She added that poetry was a form of art and an easy way to enter creativity and urged the students to develop the habit of reading to sharpen their writing skills to be good poets in the future.
‘All you must do is to write your thoughts, by not thinking about tenses or structure. It is just about writing what comes into your head which can later be refined.’
Mr Rhyme Sonny, President of PAG, said the day was to throw light on poetry, its related activities and its impact on the poet and society at large, as well as bridge cultures and express emotions.’
He said poetry was also a tool they intended to reintroduce to students in a different fashion and wonderful way, adding that in Ghana they were also using the day to celebrate the giants in the Ghanaian literary world, society, and country, at large.
‘The idea is to share the theme with the students, get to kn
ow their understanding of it, who the giants in their lives are and how we get to use the power of words and the beauty of poetry to celebrate these giants and the inspiration they can draw from.’
Mr Sonny said poetry had the ability to inspire, heal and bridge all cultures around the world. ‘It is a powerful tool that the world is presenting to us on a day like this so that we can start paying attention to poetry and the things it can do for us, especially how we can use is as a tool to express ourselves, make a living out of it and use it as a tool for survival.’
Highlighting on how to be a good poet, the President said it just took the will to write to be a poet. ‘Everyone has the gift of speech, to understand and decipher and see the beauty around everything, poetry draws inspiration from the beauty, good, bad and everything that one can think of.’
He urged the youth not to think about what to get out of it, but the fulfilment of doing it as something they had developed love and interest for.
‘Poetry
is fulfilling, and it pays because lots of people are making economic fortunes out of it. So, loving what you love to do and getting paid for it is a plus.’
Source: Ghana News Agency
