Wa, March 26, GNA – The Goethe Institute Ghana, in partnership with the Ehalakasa and the Upper West Regional Library, has marked this year’s World Poetry Day (WPD) in the Upper West region.
The day was marked with a poetry recital competition among some Senior High Schools (SHSs) in the region.
The Poetry competition, which was held in Wa, was preceded by a day’s poetry workshop for the participating students on the rudiments of poetry to help shape their minds towards the competition.
The participating schools were the Wa Technical Institute, Jamiat Islamic Girls’ SHS, Wa SHS, T. I. Ahmadiyya SHS, and St. Francis Xavier Minor Seminary.
The students thrilled the audiences with self-authored poems on colonialism, unity, fashion, anger, and slavery among others.
Wa SHS emerged first in the competition, followed by T. I. Ahmaddiya SHS with the St. Francis Xavier Minor Seminary coming third in the competition.
Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), Madam Meli Eyram Portia Mansu, the Head of Library and Information at the Goethe Institute Ghana, noted that poetry was one of the ways of telling one’s story and diversifying the expression in telling the story.
She explained that they had been organizing similar programmes every year as part of efforts to recruit poets and train them to be able to represent Ghana in the global community as far as poetry was concerned.
She urged the students to take poetry very seriously and to read and research extensively to discover the best skills in poetry.
“Before you become a good poet you must read and research. To be able to tell your story you must know the story yourself and to know your story you must read wide and know exactly how to tell your story,” Madam Mansu explained.
Mr Peter Maala, the Upper West Regional Coordinating Director, said he was enthused by poetry saying, “it is something that edifies the soul, it is something that unites people, it is something that builds bridges”.
Mr Razak Z. Abdul-Korah, the Upper West Regional Director of Education, commended the organisers for hosting this year’s event in the region and urged the students to demonstrate the act of poetry towards contributing to the development of the region and country at large.
Madam Benedicta Arthur, the Acting Upper West Regional Liberian, said observing the WPD in the region was apt as it was partly in line with this year’s theme of the Ghana Library Authority; “Libraries as Community Anchors for Transformation”.
She expressed hope that the event would help build the creativity of the students and improve their literacy skills.
Madam Arthur explained that as part of efforts to impact the communities they served, her outfit had started literacy programmes for SHS in the Wa Municipality and formed reading clubs in the schools.
UNESCO adopted March 21 as WPD with the aim of supporting linguistic diversity through poetic expression to increase the opportunity for endangered languages to be heard.
GNA