June 21, 2009

Colin Channer's Tribute to his Father

Colin ChannerThe following is an open letter by Colin Channer to his deceased father, Charlie.

Channer
, the founder and artistic director of the Calabash International Literary Festival, was honoured by the St Elizabeth Homecoming Committee on Sunday, the final day of this year's festival.

However, for Channer, who grew up in Kingston, to honestly accept and appreciate the award, he must revisit the relationship with his father, who is from St Elizabeth, and invoke his spirit.


Dear Charlie,

I don't know if you know, but I'm going to be getting an award next week. I'm getting the award at Calabash, a literary festival down in Treasure Beach, a district not too far from Watchwell in St Elizabeth, where you were born in 1932. You were buried there in '75. I didn't go to the funeral. Complications, you know.


To read more, please follow this link:

http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20090519/ent/ent1.html

***




Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

2 comments:

ruthibel said...

oooooooooh myyyyyyy goooosh!! Wow. When will I EVER be able to write like that??

I read the whole thing: start to finish. And it took no effort, because it was easy to read. If that was a book I would have finished it today. Because it took no effort. It was soo easy to read. It just flowed almost like thoughts straight of my mind... how awesome was that??

Pardon my juvenile ecstasy. But this was an excellent piece of prose. And a moving revelation of self. I loved it.

Thanx for the link. Wow!

Geoffrey Philp said...

Ruthibelle, yes, it is a remarkable piece of writing.

1Love,
Geoffrey