The Lantern meet of Poets is a community of writers and thinkers in Uganda who chose to express their creativity through writing, performing and reciting of poetry. They contribute a great deal of their time and resources towards the development of poetry among the youth in secondary schools.
Origin
The Lantern Meet of Poets started as a group of old school friends from Namilyango College who came together at the university with the passion for literature which they turned into a poetry club. Together with friends from Mount Saint Mary's College Namagunga, they elected to spend time together in a university dome room sharing poetry for the love of poetry.
Odyssey
Raymond Ojakol, Collins Assiimwe, Guy Mambo and Alal B. Sophia formed the Lanmtern Meet of Poets in Africa hall, a residential girl's hall at Makerere University in 2007. With the idea that as a cultural group they were entitled to access to the nationalcultural institution. They first meet moved away from the university residential hall to the national theater. The early meets were closed to invited members only and the participants were asked and expected to introduce new members. They eventually decided to open the meet up to non invited guests and the first recital had no title, organized by Kunihira Rachel. With memorized poems they fused music, drama and poetry in this recital. They have held several recitals since then;
Tells by the Camp fire’ first poetry production in the main theater auditorium, supported by Okurut Romanio, Which turned out to be a turning moment in the attendance of poetry meets.
Coming together to enjoy each other's passion in poetry, manifested itself in free productions for the audience, and gifts for the audience. The idea that we all come to the lantern meet to serve with service for and to as the ultimate honorific.
Anonymity
Established tradition of fairness and impartiality in critiquing which lead to the establishment of the tradition of honesty. The incidental tradition of the walk back to the university campus, affectionately called ‘the walk’ was used as an opportunity to heal possible offences.
Purposefulness
The opening of the meet introduced more people who had a deep passion for literature and had actually studied it in their secondary school years. Their introduction into the community brought a new wave of thought and a deeper conviction in the quality of poetry and the desire to have less of the appreciation poet to more of a literary poet.
Restorative
Starting with the ‘Broken voices of the revolution’ production, the Lantern Meet introduced a deliberate discussion which would lead to the harmonization of thought on what it is that the Lantern Meet of Poets wants to transmit to the audience. This process lead to a concretization in taught.
School projects
Starting 2009, the Lantern Meet of Poets visit schools to develop literary arts especially poetry. The process entails; forming writers or poetry clubs, encouraging the students to meet regularly,, write new poetry, prepare for recitals, self organize, work with other schools and the Lantern Meet of Poets and to work with other schools; e.g. Nabisunsa Girls Secondary School, Gayaza High School, Turkish Light Academy, Kings College Budo, St. Mary's College Kisubi.
Meets, recitals and poetry productions
Meet; “the meet” is the informal name given to the biweekly activity, carried out by the lantern meet. Its full form is‘The Lantern Meet Sunday Poetry Meeting’. It includes sitting in a circle, submitting poems, reading poems and critiquing poems.
