Jamaican voices with stories that inspire

As a strategic complement to the Black History Month celebrations observed in Britain during October, the team of spoken-word artist and film-maker Judith Falloon-Reid and internationally acclaimed dub poet Malachi Smith, currently on tour in the United Kingdom, is being hailed as Jamaican voices with stories that inspire.

Two voices sharing one stage at various events and school stops during the scheduled month-long tour, their presentations and performances also encourage a united stand against many of society’s challenges.

The tour opened at the Black British Book Festival in London, where both authors promoted their latest publications: The Silent Stone by Falloon-Reid and When Mali Went to School by Smith.

The Silent Stone is the result of all that remained to be spoken from conversations with a friend, now deceased, who inherited a centuries-old house in Trelawny from his aunt. Stories were shared about the aunt and her siblings playing in the dungeon beneath the house, where pieces of chains and other paraphernalia were found that could have dated back to the period of slavery.

A work of fiction, the book chronicles all the things the house witnessed during and after slavery.

Later in the month, at Immaculate Conception High School and St Andrew Primary School, she will also be promoting her books and photo exhibition, Antarctica Adventures with a Jamaican on Ice and Aaah-Inspiring Antarctica, which chronicle her journey as the first Jamaican woman to visit Antarctica.

When Mali Went to School is a children’s story dedicated to Smith’s late mother, Mildred Wilson.

“It is about me, born in rural Westmoreland,” he said, “and being walked to school for the first time by my loving and dear mother.

“It captures the beauty of that morning’s journey – the sugar cane, a farmer planting a mango tree, another riding a donkey, the honking horn of a Commer truck, the sounds of birds and the rivers as we go by. It’s also about arriving at school - the apprehension and uncertainty ... and finally making friends and enjoying the experience of that seminal day.”

The children’s story combines storytelling, poetry, humour, and life’s lessons.

“It’s more than a story about a child going to school,” said Smith.

The team’s first performance and reading took place at Spit Verse and Dub, hosted at the Jamaica National main facility in Brixton.

Falloon-Reid opened the show, immediately taking centre stage with her repertoire of readings, chants, and singing, presenting pieces such as 365 Black, Little Black Girl, and Crosses.

Smith followed with stirring poems such as Bob and Peter, My Jamaican Tongue, Boss, Concrete Jungle, Home Coming and Lynching Tree.

Marking the first time they have toured Britain together, the venture for Falloon-Reid is about following one’s dreams.

“You have to invest in yourself and be willing to grab opportunities that exist. I go where God leads and where the wind takes me. He orders our steps, and we must just walk into the opportunities.”

Smith sees the tour as moving to another level, following in the footsteps of other artists who journeyed to the United Kingdom to enhance their careers.

“New opportunities are created, and our work, naturally, is discovered by new audiences.”

Journeying to the United Kingdom also prepares them both for their ongoing roles as principals in the ninth staging of the Jamaica Poets Nomadic College and School Tour across the island from Monday, November 2, to Friday, November 13.

The school tour will be launched on November 2 at the Dennis Scott Studio Theatre at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, starting at 6 p.m., with Dr Natalie Corthésy, author and lecturer in law, as guest speaker.

The theme of this year’s tour is Reaching Out with Resilience, marking a revisiting of a number of schools affected by Hurricane Melissa last year, in addition to new schools being targeted.

The tour engages young minds, primarily high school students, on personal resolve, self-worth, and self-esteem through the creative art form of poetry, which has enhanced and enriched the delivery of the Literatures in English curriculum.

Last year, following Hurricane Melissa, members of the tour were among the presenters in an online workshop with guidance counsellors organised by the Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth and Information on the subject of students and households rebounding from trauma.