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Books by Lasana M. Sekou
37 Poems /
Brotherhood of the Spurs /
Big Up St. Martin /
Born Here /
Love Songs Make You Cry
Mothernation: Poems from 1984 to 1987 /
National Symbols of St. Martin /
Quimbé: Poetics of Sound
The Salt Reaper: Poems from the Flats
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St.
Martin Author Lasana M. Sekou
Knighted
by Dutch Queen Beatrix
GREAT
BAy, St. Martin (May 1, 2004)—On
April 29, 2004, Lt. Gov. Franklyn Richards presented the St.
Martin poet/author Lasana M. Sekou with a knighthood that was
conferred by Queen Beatrix of the Dutch kingdom on March 16,
2004.
“We hope that news of this award to Sekou
for his work, especially in literature, will inspire more St.
Martiners to write deeply and creatively about St. Martin,”
said Jacqueline Sample, president of House of Nehesi Publishers.
The royal decorations constitute the kingdom’s highest
national awards and are awarded annually for merit and
outstanding community service in the Netherlands and in its
remaining colonies in the Caribbean.
“This award could also encourage those who
are writing or who have a book to continue putting more faith,
time, and creativity in building the St. Martin literature by
researching, writing, and getting their books published.”
Sekou is the projects director of House of Nehesi, which has
published most of St. Martin’s writers and world-famous
authors from the Caribbean and the USA such as George Lamming,
Kamau Brathwaite, and Amiri Baraka.
“House of Nehesi would like to see more
books not only about our culture and history, but also about the
St. Martin experience in business, education, sports, law,
government leadership, tourism, traditional and modern medicine,
immigration, agriculture and animal husbandry, science and
infrastructural development and so on,” said Sample
In media interviews following the
royal decorations ceremony to the 12 St. Martiners at the Lt.
Governor’s Mansion in Little Bay, Sekou thanked Lt. Governor
Richards, the territory’s decorations committee (RODAC), which
organizes the selection, nomination, and presentation process,
and the Dutch sovereign that directs the approval and conferring
process. The poet also congratulated his fellow recipients.
Former St. Martin Lt. Gov. Dennis Richardson, with the award
title of “Officer,” was conferred the highest rank (of the
three categories of awards for St. Martin this year) followed by
three knights, and eight recipients of the medal of “member of
the Order of Oranje-Nassau.”
Sekou said that he would continue writing
about “the core cultural values of the St. Martin nation,
about the unity and progress of the island and its people, the
Caribbean liberation and integration process, and political
independence for St. Martin.”
The poet “dedicated” the award to “the
folks of my father’s and mother’s generation who sent us to
school with that traditional sense of pride to do better for
ourselves, our families, and for St. Martin but never to betray
the St. Martin nation.”
Sekou sees the royal decorations today in St.
Martin as “a step” to when “an independent St. Martin will
have its own highest national award. Then the Netherlands’
royal decorations and St. Martin’s national award might be
granted by each country to their own and each other’s citizens
in, for example, a category such as the promotion of friendship,
cooperation, and cultural exchange between both sovereign
nations based on mutual understand and coexistence.” * *
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update 3 August
2008 |
