Yvonne M.S. Weekes
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Yvonne Weekes
The Medellin International Poetry Festival 2023
“Moving from Death to Life”
Montserratian, Dr Yvonne Weekes attended the 33rd annual Medellin International Poetry Festival in Columbia. Weekes, who travelled to Columbia on 5th July represented Montserrat and presented work from her poetry collections “Nomad”, published by the House of Nehesi as well as “Pandemic Moments” which she wrote with the late Sir Professor Howard Fergus. Of note, Weekes also performed new work in keeping with the theme of the festival which challenges poets to be advocates for world peace.
In addition, Weekes attended the World Poetry Movement in Venezuela from 16th July to 21st July and has been asked by the WPM to provide support for new and emerging poets in Montserrat. As the National Coordinator for Montserrat’s World Poetry Movement, Weekes has been working with poets -Zelma White, Kimmora Ward and Ronel White. The three performed at Easi Living in Montserrat in March. Weekes has already selected several international poets to run poetry workshops for the group which will be done virtually.
The Montserrat team at Easi Living:
Weekes’ work has also been translated into Spanish and appears in the Prometeo magazine for this years Festivals. The Medellin International Poetry festival provides lectures, seminars, and workshops in poetry writing.
Weekes performed at the following sites in Columbia:
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Municipality of El Carmen de Viboral. Teatro Tespys
Luís Filipe Sarmento (Portugal), Mónica Lucía Suárez (Colombia), Karel Leyva (Cuba), Yvonne Weekes (Montserrat) Lunch before the readings with translators.
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Municipality of La Ceja. Comfama Auditorium. Yvonne Weekes (Montserrat) reading from Nomad.
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EAFIT University. Building 38. Auditorium
Siphiwe Nzima (Lesotho), Carolyn Forché (US), Shirani Rajapakse (Sri Lanka), Yvonne Weekes (Montserrat), Nigar Hasan Zadeh (Azerbaijan),
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Nutibara Hill. Carlos Vieco Theatre. Yvonne Weekes at the closing of the 33rd Medellin International
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In Venezuela she performed at: El Teatro Simon Bolivar
Weekes attended two days of meetings for the World Poetry Movement and will represent Montserrat on two committees devoted to creating programmes globally to promoting poetry. The most recent activity involves all poets and artistes of the world to develop a large-scale mass action to draw the world’s attention to the continuing violations of human rights on the African continent and the need for international bodies to take note of this painful and continuing circumstance and to apply the necessary correctives and sanctions to defend the right to defend the right to life and fundamental rights of the peoples of Africa.
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01.
Newton Unsilenced: Narratives Imagined
Edited Yvonne Weekes. Barbados. Drama Konnections. 2023.
02.
Building Consciousness through EthnoDrama
A Case Study” Journey Around Myself: Crossing Borders, Strengthening Connections, Breaking Boundaries in the Caribbean Cultural Ecology. Edited by Suzanne Burke. Jamaica: Ian Randle Publications. 2023, 277-288.
03.
Doing research differently
bringing art and science together in Caribbean Educational Research Journal Volume 7, Issue 1, December 2022, 96 – 110.
04.
Disaster Matters
An anthology of poems, prose and drama for secondary school students highlighting hurricanes, earthquakes and volcanoes. Edited by Drs. Yvonne Weekes and Wendy McMahon. House of Nehesi, Publication 2022
05.
"Doing Research Differently: Bringing Art and Science Together"
Caribbean Education Research Journal. Special Edition. (Forthcoming, Publication date 2022)
06.
“Building Consciousness Through Ethno-Drama: A Case Study”
In Journey Around Myself: CARIFESTA 2019 Papers. Ian Randle Publishers (Forthcoming, Publication date 2022)
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Pandemic Moments
The collection is about public occurrences, many of which the reader will recognise, but it is also about private happenings and quiet reflection on some sensitive matters. The employment of allusion and metaphor is noteworthy, and the enlisting of historical and religious reference (as in Fergus’ “Out of Nowhere” and Weekes’ “Good Friday”) helps to contextualise some of the themes of the collection, such as isolation and preservation; but these devices also serve as signifiers of promise/hope, weaving a contrapuntal thread that embellishes the work’s rich texture. The authors use these and many other strategies to induce us to look beyond the event horizon of social etiquette, propriety, writer’s privacy and then return to gauge our very own responses. Though the world has begun to understand that the region’s most potent voices are those of its artists, fewer people are aware that much of the region’s theorizing emanates from the creative work of its artists. So this collection is a deep-rooted intervention.
Dr. Yvonne Weekes will be reading at the 31st Medellin International Poetry Festival. See post below for further details.
The Medellin International Poetry Festival 2021
The Medellin International Poetry Festival (virtually) will run August 1st - 29th. Dr Weekes is scheduled to read TUESDAY, AUGUST 10 – 19:00 Col./22:00 GMT.