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.”