Sometimes, you've got to let that big blue-and-yellow bus pass if you want to reach your destination.

ABOUT FOUR YEARS AGO, I was sent into a small, colourful primary school in the middle of St George to teach Creative Writing to the upper school.

Workman’s Primary has a population of about 420 pupils, a warm, family atmosphere, and I remember its teachers as dedicated. The building, with its lively murals of children, is set into a hilly junction, with roads doubling back around, above and below it.

Pupils of St Margaret's Primary in St John show their best "lightning bolts." We would use Usain Bolt's trademark pose and other fun stretches to prepare for our storybook travels. (Photo: S. A. Devonish)
 

The drive to Glenburnie takes you east to a part of St. John that is so far flung it is practically in the ocean.

I made it my escape every Tuesday for six weeks to read to schoolchildren there.

She bid us welcome,
stay awhile. Showed us ’round
then said, Go on, chile.

Maya Angelou was easily, almost too easily, so much more than your usual triple threat. The singer, dancer, actress was also a rape-incest survivor, a madam at one stage, mother, university professor, Oprah’s good friend and, of course, international best-selling poet, essayist and inspirational writer.