Tag Archives: Caribbean Region

“Ex(ile)” – Poem by Trinidadian-born Poet Desiree C. Bailey

15 Sunday May 2022

Posted by in Poetry

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Trinidadian-American Poet Desiree C. Bailey
Photo Credit: Wilton Schereka on Poet’s Website

My Poetry Corner May 2022 features the poem “Ex(ile)” from the debut poetry collection What Noise Against the Cane by Desiree C. Bailey that won the 2020 Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize. Born in the Caribbean island-nation of Trinidad & Tobago, she was nine years old when she migrated with her family to the USA where she grew up in Queens, New York.

Bailey earned a BA from Georgetown University (Washington DC), an MFA in Fiction from Brown University (Rhode Island), and an MFA in Poetry from New York University. In Fall 2022, she will be the Writer-in-Residence at Clemson University (South Carolina).

In her interview with Corrine Collins for Air Light Magazine in September 2021, Bailey described her poetry collection What Noise Against the Cane as “a praise song to the ocean, Black people, Black women, the Caribbean, and struggles for liberation.” The first half of the collection is a long narrative poem titled “Chant for the Waters and Dirt and Blade,” written from the imagined perspective of a young, enslaved husk of girl orphaned   at the ocean’s distant edge / before ship   before humid choke of hull / before trade winds splintering [her] off into the world’s directions. With dreams of freedom, the girl joins other slaves in their fight for liberation during what became known as the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804): freedom: ruthless siren   hurl and shriek / louder   than a dream.

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“Springbank” – Poem by Jamaican-born Poet Shara McCallum

13 Sunday Feb 2022

Posted by in Poetry

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Jamaican-born poet Shara McCallum
Photo from official website

My Poetry Corner February 2022 features the poem “Springbank” from the poetry collection, No Ruined Stone, by the award-winning Caribbean American poet and writer Shara McCallum. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1972, to an Afro-Jamaican father and a Venezuelan mother, she was nine years old when she migrated to Miami, Florida, with her mother and sisters. Her father, a singer and songwriter suffering from schizophrenia, stayed behind in Jamaica where he took his life not long after their departure.

McCallum graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Miami. She earned her MFA from the University of Maryland and a PhD in African and Caribbean Literature from Binghamton University in New York. Her poems and essays have appeared in journals, anthologies, and textbooks throughout the USA, Latin America, Europe, and Israel. No Ruined Stone, published in the UK and USA in 2021, is the latest of her six books of poetry.

No Ruined Stone is a collection of speculative narrative poetry inspired by McCallum’s first visit to Scotland in 2015, where she unearthed historical records revealing that the country’s most celebrated poet, Robert Burns (1759-1796), had made plans to leave his homeland. Throughout the late summer and into the fall of 1786, Burns booked passage on three different vessels that sailed to Jamaica. He had accepted employment as a “bookkeeper” on a slave plantation in Jamaica owned and managed by his countryman, Charles Douglas. Was he trying to escape financial ruin as a struggling tenant farmer? Or was he fleeing responsibility for having impregnated a young woman out of wedlock? At the time, he was also working on publication of his first book of poetry which was well received, changing the course of his life.

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“A Report to the Academy: The Modern Caribbean” – Poem by Trinidadian Poet Raymond Ramcharitar

21 Sunday Nov 2021

Posted by in Poetry

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Front Cover of the Poetry Collection Modern, Age, &c by Raymond Ramcharitar [Photo of Sculpture by Winslow Craig]

My Poetry Corner November 2021 features Part 1 from the four-part, long poem “A Report to the Academy: The Modern Caribbean” from the poetry collection, Modern, Age, &c, by the Caribbean journalist, poet, and cultural critic Raymond Ramcharitar. Born in Trinidad, he studied at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus, where he earned his Bachelor of Science in Economics (1991), Masters in Literature in English (2002), and Doctorate in Cultural History (2007).

After completing his doctorate, Ramcharitar received three overseas fellowships: Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Warwick University, UK (2008); Visiting Scholar at New College, University of Toronto, Canada (2010); and Poetry Fellow at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference at Middlebury College, Vermont, USA (2011). He currently lives in Trinidad where he is a communications consultant for the ANSA McAL Group of Companies.

In speaking of his third poetry collection, Modern, Age, &c (Peepal Tree Press, UK, 2020), the poet said that he balanced the book among three themes: political (Modern), personal (Age), and the whimsical (&c). The tone varies from sardonic, to satiric, to lyrical.

“Modern is about the malaise: the diseases of our time: depression, anxiety, isolation—The broader themes of loss, disintegration,” the poet said. As he recently turned fifty, Age is his way to examine the shredding of the social contract. “I started to look back to find the threads that hold me together, as a parent, a man,” he said. “And try to find where everything changed: the plan for utopia, or progress, when did it become a tweet, or post on Facebook or Instagram?”

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Forest Spirits or Bush Spirits of Guyana’s Indigenous Peoples

10 Sunday Oct 2021

Posted by in Guyana

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Silk Cotton Tree – Santa Mission Indigenous Settlement – Guyana

On October 8, 2021, President Joe Biden signed a presidential proclamation declaring October 11th as a national holiday in celebration of Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Does this mean that we will no longer remember this day as Columbus Day? Growing up in what was then British Guiana, I was taught to regard the Genoan explorer Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) as a hero. During his four voyages to the New World, he explored a vast area of the Caribbean Region that he called the West Indies. The gentle and kindhearted indigenous Arawak peoples who first welcomed Columbus and his crew knew not the misery that this encounter would later unleash upon their world.

Based on what Columbus told Peter Martyr, who recorded his voyages, Martyr wrote: “They seeme to live in that golden worlde of the which olde writers speake so much, wherein menne lived simply and innocently without enforcement of lawes, without quarreling, judges and libelles, content onely to satisfie nature, without further vexation for knowledge of things to come.” [As quoted by Edmund S. Morgan in his article “Columbus’ Confusion About the New World”]

Not until his third voyage (1498-1500) did Columbus sight the coastline of Guiana but made no attempt at landing. The Dutch, the first to settle Guiana, referred to this forbidding region of dense tropical rainforest, stretching between the Orinoco and Amazon Rivers on the South American mainland, as “The Wild Coast.” After two centuries of Dutch rule (1600s to 1803) and another century of British rule, the indigenous peoples of then British Guiana, called Amerindians, had lost sovereignty over their territories. Beginning in 1902, the British forced them into reservations.

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Celebrating Caribbean American Heritage

14 Sunday Jun 2015

Posted by in Immigrants, United States

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Map CARICOM Member States

Map of CARICOM Member States
Source: Your US-Brazil Trade Assist

Since 2006 by annual presidential proclamation, June is National Caribbean American Heritage Month in recognition of the significance of Caribbean people and their descendants to the history and culture of the United States. As President Obama said in his Proclamation on May 29, 2015:

Caribbean Americans have shaped the course of our country since the earliest chapters of our history, and they continue to drive our Nation to realize the promise of our founding.  During National Caribbean-American Heritage Month, we honor the courage and perseverance of the Caribbean-American community, and we rededicate ourselves to building opportunity and protecting human rights for all our citizens. Continue reading →

Junta: A Novel by Ken Puddicombe

05 Sunday Apr 2015

Posted by in Recommended Reading

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Front Cover of Junta A Novel by Ken Puddicombe

Front Cover of Junta: A Novel by Ken Puddicombe

What can we do when the armed forces seize power from our democratically elected government, however corrupt?

In Junta: A Novel, set in 1979 on the Caribbean Island of Saint Anglia, Ken Puddicombe explores this question. Taking us within the inner circle of the Junta, he introduces us to General Marks, chief of the armed forces, and his second-in-command, Colonel Stevenson. On a tranquil Sunday morning, while their Prime Minister is away in Barbados attending a conference of Caribbean leaders, the general executes his meticulously planned and bloodless coup.

Opposition to the military takeover comes from Melanie Sanderson, a university student in her twenties who calls on students, faculty members, and the people of Saint Anglia to join her and her friends on a peaceful, protest march to the legislative center.

History Professor Marcus Jacobson, whom she admires, rejects her plan of action, viewing her as naïve: “What chance do you think you really have against them? They haven’t come this far to allow anyone to stop them, much less a band of idealistic students who don’t have any idea of the concept of power and how it’s exercised.”

As Melanie and her supporters set out on their unauthorized protest march, she sets into motion events that will force Marcus to reconsider his position and bring them closer together.

Joining the ranks of the dissidents are Father Bert and Clarence Baptiste, important voices among the people of Saint Anglia. Father Bert, who runs an orphanage in the city’s poor district, is a thorn in the side of the church’s hierarchy for his socialist ideals and his struggle for the rights of the poor that he serves.

As editor and owner of a local newspaper, Clarence Baptiste is not a man easily muzzled. His failure to comply with directives to desist from criticizing the Junta—“that the media gives [them] a chance to fix the problems created by the last [corrupt] government”—results in an anonymous bomb threat.

Puddicombe weaves an action-packed plot heightened by the undercover activities of a criminal gang, led by The Reverend, recruited by Colonel Stevenson to foment unrest and silence the opposition. A self-proclaimed religious leader, The Reverend invokes God’s name while selling his soul to the Junta.

Kentish, Marcus’ driver, gives voice to the hopelessness of the working people: “Nothing ever change. At the end of the day, I still have to work for a living. Voting don’t put food on me table or put clothes on me back. It don’t send me children to school or buy schoolbooks. All them people you vote for, they all just looking out for themselves.”

Are we powerless against military might? Can we make a difference? Melanie Sanderson is hopeful: “Maybe we don’t stand much of a chance. Maybe we will make a big difference. I don’t exactly know, Professor [Jacobson]. But I do know that doing nothing is just as bad as if we were supporting them.”

Our struggle against oppression goes on.

Ken Puddicombe

Ken Puddicombe, a Guyanese-Canadian, was an accountant by profession before retiring to pursue his love of writing. His work has since appeared in newspapers and literary journals. His first novel, Racing With The Rain, was published in 2012.

A Blueprint for Ending War: An Alternative Global Security System

15 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by in Human Behavior, United States

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World Beyond War Video

The warmongers among us who benefit from endless war would like us to believe that the human species is wired for warfare, that violence is the only effective response to aggression from our enemies. If that were true, we would not have survived as a species.

Warfare has served only to dominate weaker peoples or states for territorial expansion, control of resources, and a cheap subservient labor force. In modern times, war serves to secure the world’s oil resources held by so-called enemy states. In a not-too-distant future, fresh water and food production zones will replace our relentless pursuit for liquid black gold. Continue reading →

On the Anniversary of Guyana’s Independence Day: A Tribute to Stanley Greaves

26 Sunday May 2013

Posted by in Guyana, Poets & Writers

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Ground Birds - Shadows Series - Stanley GreavesGround Birds by Stanley Greaves from his Shadows Series
Acrylics on Canvas scroll. 102 x 76 cm.
Source: http://marukadc.com/galleryGreaves.html

 

On Guyana’s forty-seventh anniversary as an independent nation, I would like to celebrate our achievements and pay tribute to a son of Guyana: Stanley Greaves. An artist, sculpture, poet, and classical guitarist, he defines himself as “a maker of things.”

Born in 1934 in a tenement yard in Georgetown, Greaves was in his thirties at the birth of our nation. He describes life in the tenement yard as a vibrant community… with its own dramas among the families that lived there. He came from a family who were good at making things. His paternal grandfather was an upholsterer and cabinet maker from Barbados. His father made their own furniture. As a young boy, Greaves made things with whatever he could find: empty matchboxes, cigarette boxes, bits of string, wire, empty boot-polish tins. (Interview with Anne Walmsley of BOMB Magazine in Winter 2004.)

In his teens, Greaves began painting and developed his art at the Working Peoples’ Art Class (1948-1961). He later trained in the United Kingdom (1963-1968) and the United States (1979-1980). During his years back home in Guyana, he served as an art teacher and spent twelve years at the University of Guyana as head of the Creative Arts Division. Then in 1987, he left to reside in Barbados.

Recognition only came after years of work. In 1994, Greaves’ triptych of paintings, There Is a Meeting Here Tonight, won a Gold Medal at the Santo Domingo Biennales of Painting. Thenceforth, his acclaim grew within the Caribbean Region and beyond.

Greaves’ first poetry collection, Horizons: Selected Poems 1969-1998, was published by Peepal Tree Press, UK, in 2002. His second collection, The Poems Man, came out in 2009.

In Horizons, two political poems remain relevant today. Written in 1976, “To Politicians” brought to mind the vision of the founding fathers of our nation in 1966 to mold One People, One Nation, One Destiny.

A vortex of language, / seductive words of power / corrupt the tongue. / But words must leap fresh / – luminous lukanani in a pool. / Words must hit the air / – cosmic vibrations / of the gallant bell-bird. / Words must secure visions.

In “Knees” (1998), Greaves expresses hope that the people will someday bring to their knees politicians who accept words dangerous to truth.

Streets will sound to marching knees / Parents will dream for their children / and all will be right, perhaps, / in that dream if not this, / where knees of a weary people / threaten petty politics.

Greaves’ art has transformed over the years. His more recent Shadow Series explore the realm of shadows that lies beyond the second and third dimensions. To learn more, you can watch his Interview with Derrice Deane of CaribNation Television in 2011.

After forty-seven years as a developing nation, Guyana remains a shadow of its true potential. Unable to come together as One People, we are afraid to walk towards the Sun with confidence to achieve Our Destiny as a great nation…for all.