_{Photo: Rowland Anthony Parks}

by Roy Davis (freelance reporter)

BELIZE CITY, Wed. Aug. 28, 2024

Rowland Anthony Parks, 68, a highly regarded poet and journalist who was a photojournalist for the Amandala newspaper for almost two decades, has been selected to be the recipient of the Zee Edgell Literary Arts Award for the year 2024.

Parks will be given the award at a ceremony to be held at the House of Culture on Wednesday, September 4. Hon. Francis Fonseca, who serves as the Minister of Education and Culture and sits on the September Celebrations Commission, will be the person handing over the award.

“Since I retired from the media and began to live a private life, I was absolutely surprised when I was chosen for the award”, said Parks.

Parks was born in Pomona Valley, but he left that picturesque village at the age of 4 and he spent all of his life as a teenager and part of his adult life in Belize City.

He attended Lake Independence Methodist School and after he completed his primary school education, he went to work as a messenger at the Lands Department.

During his employment in the government service, Parks rose from being a messenger to the position of a Lands Inspector. Also, during that time he obtained an advanced level certificate in general principles of English law from the University of the West Indies Extra Mural Department, and two General Certificate of Education ordinary level certificates in West Indian History and British Constitution and in English.

In addition to that, Parks first became recognized as a poet when during the 1970’s he published two books, Anthology of Belizean Poetry Volume 1 and Volume 2, which he dubbed, “Belize, the voices of your children.” But he didn’t rise to prominence as a poet until he co-authored the book, Poems of Passion, Patriotism and Protest, with Amandala publisher Evan X Hyde and prominent attorney Richard “Dickie” Bradley.

“Dickie was my mentor as an aspiring writer from those days”, said Parks with pride.

Parks retired from the government service in 1981, shortly before Belize gained its independence. He went to work for Amandala, where he chronicled the independence celebrations activities.

In 1982 he left his post at Amandala and migrated to New York.

In 1991 he enrolled in Baruch College City University of New York, where he studied journalism.

While he was at the university he gave himself the pen name, “Lamine Lasana”, an African term which, when translated to English, means “honest poet”.

“I adopted the pen name as a consciousness of my African ancestry, which I became aware of by attending UBAD meetings, as I was a card-carrying member of UBAD”, said Parks.

He used the pen name when he was the editor of the university’s “Inside Out” section of their magazine, Dollars and $ense. He also used the pen name in his publication of an article in South Magazine about Belize’s foreign policy regarding the sending of US troops to Belize.

Parks returned to Belize in the year 2000, and after working at Reporter Press and other media houses, he went back to work for Amandala until 2020, when he was diagnosed with advanced glaucoma.

But despite his visual disability, Parks plans to continue writing, and he has already set up his computer to allow him to use it as a writing tool.

Parks has been living alone in Ladyville since his retirement.

He is the father of two adult daughters, Tanya and Tanisha, who were born in the USA and whom he describes as writers of prose and poetry, following in his footsteps.

(AMANDALA Ed. Note: Congratulations and big respect to Brother Rowland Parks!)