Dominican poet selected for curated online feature

Dominican poet, Tamara Lowe’s work was recently featured in the Acalabash Blog’s Poetry Portfolio; curated by John Robert Lee, a notable St. Lucian writer, who along with Andy Caul, the founder and main editor, are the persons behind the online repository of contemporary Caribbean writing. Her poems featured on the site (both written and in audio format) are: “To You Who Love Him,”  “What I Want,” and “To Little Black Girls Who May Never Be Told.”

The Portfolio, which was posted to the site on Friday 17th December, 2021, is the sixth, and most recent in a series featuring the work of authors and artists from the Eastern Caribbean.  For Caul, who holds a Master’s degree from Harvard, Acalabash is especially interested in “voices that provide fresh and nuanced perspectives on sociopolitical issues and cultural practices …of the sub-Region.”      

He says he is “always excited to read and to amplify the voices of younger creatives of the Eastern Caribbean.”

Lee is one of the group of significant Saint Lucian writers who are the younger contemporaries of the late Nobel Laureate, Derek Walcott. He is the author of elemental, (2008), Collected Poems 1975-2015, (2017), and Pierrot, (2020). His poetry appears in numerous magazines and anthologies, including the Penguin Book of Caribbean Verse. His reviews and columns appear widely, and he produced and presented radio and television programs in Saint Lucia for over thirty years.

Lowe, who hails from the northern town of Portsmouth, has been writing and performing poetry for several years and has performed at several events in Dominica to include the Dominica Festival of Arts (DOMFESTA) in 2021. No stranger to stages outside her homeland, her poems were also featured at two of the Bocas Literary Festival events based in Trinidad & Tobago in 2021 and she has also performed her poems at a Hugh Wooding Law School OECS Cultural event.  Lowe is currently working on her first book, a collection of poems.

While the OECS has central focus in Acalabash, the Portfolio also carries work by authors from other parts of the Caribbean including French, Spanish and Dutch -speaking nations.  Also featured in Portfolio #6 were poetry of Anique Sylvestre (Martinique), Amilcar Sanatan (Trinidad & Tobago), Artwork by Mac Donald Dixon (Saint Lucia) and Anique Sylvestre (Martinique). The work of Dominicans Celia Sorhaindo (Portfolio #1) and Artwork by Sarama Rolle – Culture (Portfolio #2) were also featured in previous issues.

Lowe is currently the Country Manager of Tropical Shipping in Dominica and was recently elected the President of the regional maritime organization, Women in Maritime Association Caribbean (WiMAC).