Hey, peeps, I received a beautiful and encouraging piece of correspondence two days ago that so lifted my spirits and heightened my sense of 'smadification'. I have to share it. The uplifting link-up came in the form of an email from Kareece Reid, a 10-year-old, grade 5 student from the Lime Hall Primary School in St Ann.

The very confident and intelligent young miss had performed my poem 'Gate Man' at the recently held JCDC parish finals and she earned a score of 85/100 which landed her a well-deserved silver medal. So she wrote me to express her joy, to commend me as the writer and to get my feedback on her rendition. She even sent me a video clip of the performance. Well, I was very impressed.

In her own words, young Miss Reid "fell short of the gold by six points". She was, however, still very thankful for her achievement, and seemed more concerned with whether or not she did justice to the poem. I told that her that the idea of her doing justice to the piece is not a vital consideration for me. The way I see it, she's doing me great honour by immortalising my work and giving me relevance. Thanks and congratulations, Kareece.

You're a symbol of hope and inspiration!

Yeahs man; it was a touching experience for me. So, look here nuh, I absolutely love myself right now. Fi real friends, mi proud a mi lickle self and mi busy a revel inna my 'smaddification'. You don't know what is 'smaddification '? OK, let me give you a lickle edification.

I read a refreshingly informative article in The Gleaner yesterday. It was a tribute to recently departed iconic cultural dynamo Tony Laing, written by political scientist and historian Professor Rupert Lewis. That's where I learned some new terminologies (like 'neology' and 'ontology') and where I rediscovered 'smaddification!

self-worth

In the article,'Tony Laing: a life that touched so many others' Lewis wrote "He was a raconteur, a storyteller and a neologist. One of his neologisms was 'smaddification', which means the process of self-acceptance and the affirmation of one's self-worth. This idea was adopted and used by the late Rex Nettleford and other philosophers such as Professor Charles Mills, of Northwestern University, as a Jamaican ontological concept which countered the cultural alienation from one's African roots and the adoption of the ideas of self-debasement."

So in other words 'smaddification' is about accepting and affirming a strong and positive sense of self-worth. And the arts and education provide vital avenues for engendering that process. Thank God for teachers and others who continue to contribute to education and facilitate smaddification.

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... The arts and education provide vital avenues for engendering that process. Thank God for teachers and others who continue to contribute to education.