September 12, 2003

Poetry Reading @ your library

Welcome—Edgar O.Lake,
FRIENDS of The Florence Williams Public Library
Poets
Tribute to Tom Feelings by Leo Carty
Amina Saleem
Richard Schrader
Mark Sylvester
Edgar Lake

Intermission

Introduction of Special Guest
David Nelson, Last Poet by Edgar O.Lake

Daudi Stout
Earthla Augustin
Marvin Williams
Tay Stevenson

Open Microphone

Donations
Sun Self-Storage
Hennemann Ice Plant

Organizing Committee
Edgar O.Lake
Zoraida Jacobs, St.Croix Literacy Center
Earthla Augustin
Sylvania Golphin, Founder, FRIENDS FWPL
Denise Ellis—Project Coordinator
Wallace Williams, Head Librarian,
Florence Williams Public Library
 

"...For decades, he had built a series of artworks about the trans-Atlantic journey that brought slaves to the Americas. It was a journey that started in West Africa, where Feelings had lived. And for most of the captives, the tortuous ocean crossing ended in Charleston, in the state that became his home…"

    
Leo Carty, Artist in Residence at Florence Williams Public Library and friend of Tom Feelings talks about  his friend's work the times they shared when he visited St. Croix at Poetry @ your library September 9, 2003
                                           
                     Edgar O.Lake's Remarks on Tom Feelings

     The St. Croix Community of poets and artists, salute the life of the late Tom Feelings, Master Illustrator and author of children's books, who died this past Monday (August 25, 2003).  The somber irony of saying this in The Florence Williams Public Library's Children's Theater, is not lost on us.  This place is, after all, the womb of our own Poetry Reading @ your library series.  It is, now, a small cathode illuminating Feelings's gifts to our hemisphere.
     In 1919, the great W.E.B. DuBois initiated the Brownies Book, intended especially for Black children.  (Later, DuBois visited St.Thomas, as a guest of Bandleader Alton Adams.) Novelist Nella Larsen, whose father was from St. Croix, was among the first to publish stories of her childhood, in the Brownies Book.  Many Harlem Renaissance poets responded to the challenge, to include Langston Hughes, who published the "Dream Keepers;" and, Arna Bontemps, who wrote several children's stories.  Together they co-authored "Popo and Fifina." Later, Gwendolyn Brooks wrote "Bronzeville Boys and Girls."
     Like Hughes, Feelings visited the island of St. Croix.  He belonged to the second wave of Black Children's authors, inspired by the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Arts Movement.  We are indebted to Feelings, who was an illustrator and art consultant for the Guyana Ministry of Education (1971-74), among his many book projects and awards.  The significance of his work in Ghana in the 1960's is not lost to us.
     We treasure his many books in the the Children's Collection of the Florence Williams Public Library, and remain grateful to Mr. Leo Carty for sharing his insights of Feelings's many books with us; particularly his masterpiece, "Middle Passage: White Ships, Black Cargo" (1995).

Poetry Reading @ Your Library
Dates:
April 11, May 3, June 6, July 11, August 8, September 12,
October 10, November 14,
December 12

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