May 31, 2009

Caribbean American Heritage Month 2009

Caribbean American Heritage Month

In 2006 President George W. Bush issued a proclamation for the celebration of Caribbean American Heritage Month in June of each calendar year: “For centuries, Caribbean Americans have enriched our society and added to the strength of America. They have been leaders in government, sports, entertainment, the arts, and many other fields. . . . We are united by our common values and shared history, and I join all Americans in celebrating the rich Caribbean heritage and the many ways in which Caribbean Americans have helped shape this Nation.”

Throughout this month, I will be doing my part to help with this celebration by joining with fellow writers and artists in South Florida. I will be reading from my latest collection of short stories, Who’s Your Daddy?: And Other Stories at the following venues:


Saturday, June 6, 2009

7 - 8:30 pm

Sailboat Bend Artist Lofts

1310 SW 2nd Court

Fort Lauderdale, FL

Phone: 9546627827

art@artistswhowork.com

*



Tuesday, June 9, 2008 @ 8pm

Books and Books

265 Aragon Avenue

Coral Gables, Florida 33134

*



Caribbean Book and Art Fair

Celebrating Derek Walcott

1992 Nobel Literature Laureate

June 19, 20, 21, 2009

Miramar Cultural Center

2400 Civic Center Place Miramar, Fl 33025

For Information Call 954-357-7478/754-224-8150/786-537-5897


If you get a chance, stop by and see me, nuh?

***

Photo credit: Caribbean American Heritage Month

***



May 29, 2009

"Erzulie's Daughter" @ Peony Moon


Erzulie’s Daughter
Geoffrey Philp

It began with the usual insults
about her nose and hips,
and the belief that her true-true mother
lived on a coral island protected
by sunken galleys and man-o-wars.


To read the rest of the poem, please follow this link: Peony Moon.
Thanks, Michelle!

***
BTW, the photo was taken at the Calabash International Literary Festival. I''ll be writing about my xperiences next week. Stay tuned...

Geoffrey Philp's Blog Spot on Kindle

blog on kindle

Geoffrey Philp's Blog Spot is now available on Kindle.



***

May 27, 2009

Vote for the Top Ten Caribbean Theatre Classics

Top Ten Caribbean Theatre ClassicsFirst, give thanks to all those who submitted your choices to the Top Ten Caribbean Theatre Classics which closed on Monday, May 25, 2009, @ 4:30 pm.

The voting begins today and will end on Friday, June 5, 2009, @ 4:30 pm.

I’ve posted the list of with the number of votes here and they are listed alphabetically here. I have organized the voting based on number of votes. In the case of a tie, if a playwright was mentioned at least twice, then s/he was “bumped up” the list. I realize that some may disagree with the voting methods, but this is not a definitive list. Unlike the method for submission, the voting method does not give me the option of unlimited choices, and this just seemed to be the most equitable method of choosing the plays.

These are the final choices from the submissions. I am very interested in any comments about this process and especially about the plays that made the final cut.


Please do not be intimidated by the list or if you haven't read all 12 plays.



Vote for Your Top Ten Caribbean Theater Classics
Dream on Monkey Mountain by Derek Walcott
Ti Jean and his Brothers by Derek Walcott
School's Out by Trevor Rhone
Smile Orange by Trevor Rhone
Echo in the Bone by Dennis Scott
Dog by Dennis Scott
Pantomime by Derek Walcott
The Rapist by Pat Cumper
Fallen Angel and the Devil Concubine by Pat Cumper
In the Beautiful Caribbean by Barry Reckord
White Witch by Barry Reckord
The Joker of Seville by Derek Walcott
Free polls from Pollhost.com



May 20, 2009

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Rastafari


Professor Darren Middleton, who has written extensively about Rastafari, is interviewed by Rev. John Paul Roach: The Phenomenon of Rastafarianism.

Here's the url: http://www.podcast-directory.co.uk/episodes/the-phenomenon-of-rastafarianism-with-guest-dr-darren-middleton-12688179.html

In this wide-ranging interview, Professor Middleton covers the following topics:

The links between Rastafari and Hinduism
Core beliefs of Rastafari: InI
Diversity in Rastafari
Role of Marcus "Mosiah" Garvey and Leonard Percival Howell
Nazirite vows in Rastafari
Queen of Sheba and King Solomon
Use of marijuana
Kebra Nagast
Twelve Tribes of Israel
Christology and Rastafari
Symbolism of red, green, and gold in Rastafari
Reggae and Rastafari

And if you listen all the way through the commercials to the end, he mentions the work of Kwame Dawes and my novel, Benjamin, my son.
***

May 18, 2009

Walcott and Oxford: The Times Perspective

Derek Walcott
For the writer of "Profile: Derek Walcott: A smear silences the colonial bard" to suggest that Walcott's withdrawal from the race for Oxford's professor of poetry as a summative "final act," is at best reductionist thinking that borders on colonialist paternalism.

Walcott's greatness lies in the unrivaled body of work that he has created for the past fifty years. Nobel laureates, Oxford professorships and other awards are "loosely worn garments," and throughout this minor ordeal, Walcott has demonstrated the kind of dignity that I have always associated with his verse.


He is the modern world’s greatest living poet. Or a dirty old man who should
not be left alone with female students. Or both. Or neither. Of those four
options, only the last seems wholly unlikely in the case of Derek Walcott.
The winner of the 1992 Nobel prize in literature and the most widely
applauded writer to have emerged from the cultural stewpot of the Caribbean
could have woken up this morning as Oxford University’s professor of poetry.


This little tragedy may just be the final act.


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Who’s Your Daddy? in Hialeah

Who's Your Daddy?I am always very careful about the things I say when I’m around teenagers because if they misunderstand tone, bias, or context, then a whole lotta people will have a lot of xplainin’ to do. So I approached with a with a bit of hesitancy my reading of “How do you tell?” from Who’s Your Daddy? at a local high school on May 8, 2009.

On the surface, “How do you tell?” and “First Love” from Who's Your Daddy? are stories about identity and fit in with the literature textbook themes of "Conformity and Rebellion." But “How do you tell?” is different from "First Love," in many ways.

“How do you tell?” exists on both literal and metaphorical levels. On a literal level, the story expresses difference, but there are several clues within the text that suggest that it could also be read as the attempt of a young man to understand with his sexual identity and to "come out" to his parents.

Of course, once we had deconstructed the story, I had to answer the question, “Are you gay?” which had the follow-up, “What made you want to write this story?” I didn’t have the time to go into the prejudices that male, Jamaican writers must confront, but I talked about the issues of difference that I’ve had to face in my personal and professional life—always being a kind of exotic whether I was playing football or in graduate school and being the only black person in the room when Absalom, Absalom was being dissected. I also talked about the devastation that I had witnessed because of AIDS during the early years when no one knew how the disease was spread and many of my friends were dying.

Teenagers have a hard enough time just dealing with growing up and when sexual identity is thrown in the mix, then I can only imagine the grief that they must face daily. I hope these stories will help with the discussion of this issue that has split families and torn communities apart.

***


May 17, 2009

Don Drummond: Musical Genius

Don Drummond
"He was a musical prophet created by the people, not one imposing himself on them in pursuit of stardom, but having it thrust upon him. Drummond observed their tribulations and aspirations then reshaped them into a blues allegory reflected through his compositions and plaintive trombone tone."

To read some more about Don Drummond, please follow this link: Don Drummond @ All About Jazz.

May 14, 2009

MDC’s Florida Center for the Literary Arts Offers Summer Creative Writing Courses

Michael Hettich is one of Miami's finest poets and he is also committed to sustaining our relationship with the environment.
Michael Hettichclipped from www.mdc.edu
Michael Hettich

Michael Hettich will lead a six-week workshop on environmental writing as part of FCLA's Summer 2009 Creative Writing Courses, which offers a variety of classes taught by renown writers.

Tuesdays, June 2 - July 7
Creative Writing Course: Writing Earth—An Intro to Environmental Writing with Michael Hettich

6:30 - 8:30 p.m. | Miami Dade College, Wolfson Campus
$125 (Current MDC faculty and credit students: $100)

This six-week workshop covers writing and discussing poems, stories and personal essays that take the natural world as the subject matter. In addition, it will incorporate various writing exercises designed to help students develop their abilities to write in organic forms and think in ways that attempt to capture something of the “inner life” of nature. The class will also examine examples of great nature writing to extend and deepen the conception of the genre’s possibilities.


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May 13, 2009

Derek Walcott Withdraws Candidacy for Oxford Poetry Professor


If as Peter Tosh sang, “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” then, the lawns of Oxford must be littered with shards after the withdrawal of Derek Walcott for the candidacy of Oxford poetry professor.

And it’s a shame.

For the whole point of being an Oxford poetry professor was to place the poet in a community of poets and scholars, and out of that dialogue, Walcott (if he had won) would have been contractually bound over the next five years as Dr Nicholas Shrimpton explained, “to give grand public lectures, not to teach students in examined courses.”

But an extra-literary smear campaign forced Walcott to resign from one of the most important positions in academia and within the community of poets. As Walcott put it: "I withdraw from the election to be professor of poetry at Oxford. I am disappointed that such low tactics have been used in this election and I do not want to get into a race for a post where it causes embarrassment to those who have chosen to support me for the role or to myself," he told the Evening Standard. "I already have a great many work commitments and while I was happy to be put forward for the post, if it has degenerated into a low and degrading attempt at character assassination, I do not want to be part of it."

Now while I will not defend Walcott’s alleged personal behavior—which I hinted at in a response to William Logan’s snarky review of The Bounty—nor do not believe that “artistic license” gives anyone the right to behave in a destructive manner towards others, I agree with the line of reasoning posed by Oxford English professor Elleke Boehmer to her colleagues: “How many male professors of poetry of a certain age and generation can safely hold their hands up and say that they are entirely clear of any history of sexual harassment?" It does not excuse their actions, but anyone who has read the novels of Phillip Roth or Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is well acquainted with the behavior of these men, especially Caribbean men, who are “of a certain age and generation.”

In our age of greed (AIG, anyone?), lust is not the only vice as Dante’s Inferno reminds us--something that my father, an accountant and also a member of that “certain age and generation,” in his own way taught me in a backhanded compliment for one of his co-workers: “ I can leave X with a million pounds and come back in ten years and not even a farthing would be missing.” But then, he quickly added, “I wouldn’t leave your sister with him for a second.”

Hermione Lee, in confirming Walcott’s withdrawal, stated: "Oxford loses the opportunity to hear lectures on poetry for the next five years from one of the great poets of the world, a Nobel prize winner, an honorary doctor of Oxford University and a writer who is on the Oxford syllabus."

It’s not only Oxford, but the world.

***
(5/14/2009) Update from Walcott's former accuser, Nicole Kerby: Walcott is the Greatest Living Poet

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Caribbean Heritage Summer Institute

Jamaica Awareness Inc. is set to launch the Caribbean Heritage Summer Institute for children ages 11-18 years old. The Institute will run from June 8 to July 3, 2009 and will be held at the Holy Family Episcopal Church in Miami Gardens.

Sydney Roberts, Executive Director of the non-profit organization notes that the goal of the program is to develop children’s understanding of the cultural heritage of the Caribbean region and the ways in which this heritage has shaped both the local and broader community. “As we look to the future," Roberts states, "it is essential that we work to empower our youth for school and community development."

“ This summer institute is designed to ensure that participants leave with a heightened appreciation for culture and a strong sense of the role they can play in strengthening the development of their community by making a meaningful contribution through the arts.”

Targeting middle to high school youngsters, the Caribbean Heritage Summer Institute is designed to grab their interest through diverse hands on, interactive activities where they will learn new performance skills, finesse existing ones, and move on to present their work to the community in a variety of settings, including the popular Culturama in August.

Dr. Marva McClean, Program Director, will lead a team of educators from local school districts and professionals in the cultural arts in providing the students with a creative and innovative visual and performing arts curriculum over the four week period. All students will participate in five core areas: Caribbean Heritage, Dance & Music, Caribbean Games, Art of the Caribbean, and Celebrations: Carnival & Festivals.

“Our vision is that during the time they are with us, the Institute’s participants will receive an engaging, challenging and relevant community based education which they can use as a springboard for their future development,” asserts Mr. Roberts.

Caribbean Heritage Summer Institute News Release

Phone: 305-405-2712

***

May 12, 2009

Help Global Voices Advocacy win $3000 by Writing One Post

“I vote for Global Voices Advocacy, because it is a remarkable aggregator that brings bloggers from around the world together and allows us to see multiple perspectives on issues such as online censorship that affect the global community."

Now it's your turn. I 'm tagging:


And if you've read this and care about online censorship, you're tagged!
Go forth and spread the gospel!

Help Global Voices Advocacy win $3000 by writing one post

Global Voices Advocacy - Defending free speech online Help Global Voices Advocacy win $3000! The prize money would help us continue to raise awareness of attacks on online freedom of speech, and share tools and tactics with activists and bloggers facing censorship on different parts of the globe. All you have to do is write a post in your own blog, including the following text…

“I vote for Global Voices Advocacy, because… (put your own words here).

This blog post is part of Zemanta's “Blogging For a Cause” (http://www.zemanta.com/bloggingforacause/) campaign to raise awareness and funds for worthy causes that bloggers care about.

The deadline is JUNE 6, 2009.

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May 11, 2009

Book Giveaway: Who’s Your Daddy?:And Other Stories.

Who's Your Daddy?What does it mean to be a Caribbean-American? This is a question that has haunted me ever since I left Jamaica over thirty years ago. Of course, mine has been a singular response and I’ve thought through the question in many of the stories in Who’s Your Daddy?:And Other Stories.

Yet, I still wonder how others feel about this question. To get as many answers as I can, I'm going to take a page from Middle Zone Musings, and ask readers to write a brief post (100 to 1000 words maximum) about the following topic:

What does it mean to be a Caribbean-American?

“To sweeten the pot” (Can a Jamaican blogger use that word without being misunderstood?), one lucky winner will receive an autographed copy of Who's Your Daddy?: And Other Stories.

The winner will be selected at random, but take a moment to read the contest rules to learn more. Plus, you gotta be older than 18, to enter. Some of the stories in Who's Your Daddy?: And Other Stories deal with "mature" subjects and I don't want to be accused of "corrupting the youth." I am also not limiting the term "Caribbean-American" to those who live in the United States. I mean Caribbean-(North) American. This includes all the folk up in cold Canada!

For Bloggers:

Write a short post (maximum 1000 words) on the topic: What does it mean to be a Caribbean-American?

Link to this post and leave a comment on this blog with your url so I’ll know that you’ve entered.


For Readers Who Do Not Blog:

Write a short post (maximum 1000 words) on the topic: What does it mean to be a Caribbean-American?

Send the post to me in the body of an e-mail (geoffreyphilp101 at gmail.com) with the subject line:What does it mean to be a Caribbean-American?

Please include a digital photo (.jpg).

***


If this topic doesn’t appeal to you, I’ll be having two other book giveaways on these topics, the second of which will culminate on Father’s Day 2009 (June 21, 2009).

Growing up Without Dad (or Pops, Papa, Dada, or SOB—whatever you call your male parental antecedent).


Growing up With Dad

In the meantime, however, let's get started on this: What does it mean to be a Caribbean-American?

May 10, 2009

Mother's Day 2009

Merty Philp and family
She planted bulbs during the winter
When nothing it seemed would ever survive
The cold until early May when the first

Saplings pushed their green music into a noisy world.
For all the while, they had been growing
With the kind of stubborn faith that sends

Monarch butterflies reeling across continents,
Seeking a resistant patch of green covered
In milkweed. Yet under a punishing sun

With enough earth to spread roots and sky
To blossom, nurtured by egg shells and seaweed
Impossible colors that rivaled her neighbor’s garden

Greeted her as she opened the door to the back yard,
Each petal bursting like a prayer that had been answered
That grew from her hands, almost like her children.

***

May 9, 2009

SIGNS OF ONENESS: An Exploration of Symbols, Ritual and Cultural Imagery

SIGNS OF ONENESS
SIGNS OF ONENESS:
An Exploration of Symbols, Ritual and Cultural Imagery

Host: Nerissa Street and others
Music/Arts - Opening
Start Time: Saturday, May 16, 2009 at 7:00pm
End Time: Saturday, June 13, 2009 at 7:00pm
Location: Sailboat Bend Artist Lofts
Street: 1310 SW 2nd Court
City/Town: Fort Lauderdale, FL
Phone: 9546627827
Email: art@artistswhowork.com


List of Events

Saturday, May 16
Art Exhibit opens, juror: Tennille Shuster, MFA

Featuring:
Alison Eager
Eddy Jean-Baptiste
Simone de Bernard Mas
Louis Davis
Emily Wolverton
Claudia Polzer
Rhonda Gutierrez
Lisa Narcisse

Mini-exhibit: “Reflections of a Barrel Child—Symbols of Caribbean Family Life”

Film Screening and conversation with director Iva Marc
“Self-Image (Juxtapose)”

Interactive symbol-making experience

Musical delights and Supersonics provided by Alexander Star and DJ OneStar

Caribbean and tropical refreshments
Free Parking at Parks and Recreation lot on 14th Avenue.

Friday, May 22
Film screening and discussion, “Existentialism”, with director Adelin Gasana – 7 PM

Saturday, May 23
Dream Workshop by Marshall Davis
10 AM – 2 PM
Registration $25

Saturday, May 30 at 7 PM
Film screening and director talk with Berwick Augustin
“Libere Liberis”

Thursday, June 4
Alison Eager: Symbols in art
Artist Talk
6- 7:30 PM

Saturday, June 6
Book signing of "Who's Your Daddy?"
Caribbean Children's literature by Geoffrey Philp
7 - 8:30 PM

June 13
Closing night concert and fundraiser
(plus an exciting announcement)

***

May 8, 2009

Spock, Barack, and Papa Legba: Cosmic Integrators

Barack and SpockFor those of us who are old enough to have grown up on the original Star Trek, tonight is the night when we see as Jeff Greenwald states: "the back story of the original series, and show how its three principles got themselves onto what might be (along with Noah’s Ark and the Titanic) the most famous vehicle in history: the starship Enterprise."

And I'll be there because of Spock--the Papa Legba of cosmic challenges.

I've always loved the character of Spock and for all the reasons as Greenwald continues in his comparison of the fictional character and the very real Barack Obama: "His appeal stems from the self-aware integration of all aspects of his personality: black and white, wonk and poet, athlete and aesthete."

Spock always managed to remain calm while the world raged around him as Leonard Nimoy pointed out in an interview and explained Spock's appeal: "what I was constantly playing -- is the yin/yang balance between our right and left brains. How do you get through life as a feeling person, without letting emotions rule you? How do you balance the intellectual and emotional sides of your being?"

As a teenager growing up during the turbulent seventies in Jamaica, this is what drew me to the character of Spock. And the fact that he was a mixed-breed curiosity who managed to maintain his composure despite the taunts of others made him a kind of male role model when there were few, if any, around.

This began my curiosity with sci-fi and when I decided to become a writer, one of my first stories was "Uncle Obadiah and the Alien," and why I named one of the main characters in my novel, Benjamin, my son, Papa Legba. It's wanting to find an answer to a question that has always haunted me: How do we straddle two worlds?

Poet and baller. Spirituality and rationality. Desire and responsibility. The internal battle still continues. Some days the human wins and some days the Vulcan takes over. But neither pole has all the answers--just as Obama learned as he walked through the racial minefield of America, and which is why he continues to confound his critics. He has looked at the world through black and white eyes and his solutions represent a new Hegelian equilibrium in race relations. The rest of them will have to play catch-up. But the only way that they will be able to do this is by rigorous self scrutiny--something of which Spock would have found "fascinating."

It's what we all have to continue.

Live long and prosper, Idrens!

***

Three Poems by Jennifer Rahim

Jennifer Rahim is Trinidadian. Her first collection of poems, Mothers Are Not the Only Linguists was published in 1992, followed by Between the Fence and the Forest (Peepal Tree, 2002). She also writes short fiction and criticism. She currently teaches at The Liberal Arts Department, The University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad.

Her poems have appeared in several Caribbean and international journals and anthologies. Some of these include The Caribbean Writer, Small Axe, The Trinidad and Tobago Review, The Graham House Review, Mangrove, The Malahat Review, Crossing Water, Creation Fire, The Sisters of Caliban, Crab Orchard Review and Atlanta Review. Short stories have appeared in The New Voices, The Caribbean Writer, and Caribbean Voices I.

Awards include The Gulf Insurance Writers Scholarship (1996) to attend the Caribbean Writers Summer Institute, Univ. of Miami; The New Voices Award of Merit (1993) for outstanding contributions to The New Voices journal; The Writers Union of Trinidad and Tobago Writer of the Year Award (1992) for the publication, Mothers Are Not The Only Linguists.



BLACK POWER APRIL, 1970

In April she turned seven.
The city was an army of arms, uplifted –
fists, tight, punching hard at heaven.

What did it all mean – becoming seven,
and Port-of-Spain an angry sea,
heaving, demanding release?

Sister preached a mad Sermon on Hair,
led blind prayers to the Virgin for peace –
her lenses as black as her fear.

Corralled in a rosary of responses,
she saw again the white of her father’s shirt,
sailing to work. More than anything,

she wanted to march beside him, cuffing
against the wrong she could not tell him,
shouting, “Power!” until the whole sky fell.



FOR SEEDS THAT WITHER

This is a beg pardon
for the seeds that wither
and get choked out before they flower

those fragile ones eager to bear
that rock-heart and shallow-mind
kill dead long before their time

For the unborn and all things just
beginning that meet sudden dry season
today I beg pardon

For all seeds that start to grow
in the look-at-my-crosses spots of bird-drop
like concrete crack and old chamber pot

For the paw-paw plant that claim a space
right in Miss Mary rose-garden
and get root out for being too brazen

This is a prayer for all the little ones
that sex bandit rob of their innocence
Today I beg pardon

This is a chant to break the back
of the jumbie who busy building
fences to keep the lines clearly drawn

like Amado Diallo who eat police bullet
for holding up a wallet in a pasture
he dreamt might to be greener

For all those we slam the life door on
who pass by without being mourned
today I beg pardon

This is a prayer for the down and out
the coke-heads and gone-crazy
the ones whose courage-tank run empty

This is a hymn for women like Bajan Patsy
that life and men beat up on
till body and soul-case split like a pod

This is a prayer that at least someone
will mourn and temples of re-birth
rise where their limbs meet with earth

Today I beg pardon
for seeds that wither and die
before they get a chance at life



AFTER HOSPITAL VISITS

She comes in like a wilted flower – spent,
slightly limping on a wounded ankle
that each year seemed less able to carry
her small frame on her heart’s ready business.
Missions my father baptised her goings
to care for grandchildren – days at a time.
Something like pain trembled in his voice.
He needed her much more than he could say,
but bore her absences as he did his suffering,
bravely – waiting as she once did for him
when his many goings were not about love.
Now, she is the woman of his sixth station.
After hospital visits she collapses in his chair
puts her feet up, and is no more broken –
bridge that bears his not too late love of home.


from: Approaching Sabbaths.

***

May 6, 2009

Who's Your Daddy?: Gender Issues






Every Jamaican man lives in fear of a lie. It was a lie that was born in slavery, nurtured by Victorian prudishness and hypocrisy, and grew into maturity under the tutelage of fundamentalist Christianity. It’s a lie that continues to wreak havoc on both sides of the racial and gender divide and is a frequent topic of pornography: the Black, male stud.

This stereotype drives straight men to have sex with as many woman as they can (or to lie about it) and to have irrational fears about gay/queer men—as if gay men represented a diminishment of their sexuality. It is an idea that the African-American writer, James Baldwin, explored in “Going to Meet the Man,” where the protagonist’s sense of virility depends upon the debasement of another man—a black man who is lynched because of another man’s penis envy.

It’s an image that allows for gay bashing and murder in Jamaica, and has led some gay men to commit suicide. It’s an issue that many straight writers in the Caribbean continue to dodge, but one which I felt compelled to address in “First Love” and “How Do You Tell” from Who’s Your Daddy?: And Other Stories.

These two stories approach the issue of gender identity from different perspectives, yet the characters share a common apprehension: the fear of being discovered. This connects to a larger fear in the Jamaican psyche—that somehow being different is a mortal sin from which there is no salvation.

I hope “First Love” and “How Do You Tell” will continue a conversation that is long overdue in Caribbean fiction. For although Thomas Glaves's, Our Caribbean: A Gathering of Lesbian and Gay Writing from the Antilles, was a great beginning, unless Caribbean, heterosexual male writers begin to examine our collective attitudes towards gender identity, the issue will remain in a fiction ghetto—an interesting if peculiar development that can only diminish us.

And we will all be the losers.

***

May 4, 2009

Submissions: Top Ten Caribbean Theatre Classics

Top Ten Caribbean Theatre Classics Submissions for the Top Ten Caribbean Theatre Classics will begin today. Without getting too complicated, I’ve decided to break it down into two rounds.



Also, if you can't think of twelve, put what ya got!



In case you get lost, here is the direct link to the survey:

http://CTLSilhouette.wsu.edu/surveys/ZS91063

Instructions:

Type in your 12 choices. Update (5/5/2009--Thanks, Pam!). These are not in order of preference. Merely list your choices.

When you reach your 12th choice, hit SEND survey and you’re done!

Give thanks and spread the word!


ROUND ONE

Submissions for the Top Ten Caribbean Theatre Classics will run May 4, 2009 to 4:30 p.m. on May 15, 2009.

ROUND TWO

Voting for the Top Ten Caribbean Theatre Classics will run May 18, 200 to 4:30 p.m. on May 29, 2009.


The Top Ten Caribbean Theatre Classics will be announced on June 1, 2009—the start of Caribbean-American Heritage Month


Definition(s) for the TOP TEN Caribbean Theatre Classics


The setting of the play should be in the Caribbean or Diaspora and the characters should be of Caribbean descent or second generation.

The playwright does not have to be of Caribbean descent.

The playwright does not have to be alive—except in her/his work.


Please submit only once. We are operating on the honor system.


Here’s the link for the submissions: Top 10 Caribbean Theatre Classics


***



May 1, 2009

New Book:"La fête des morts" by Dany Laferrière

Dany Laferrière, best known for Dining With the Dictator and How to Make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired, has turned his attention to writing children’s books.

In 2006 his first children’s book, Je suis fou de Vava, (I’m Crazy for Vava) won the Governor General's Award, and according to the publisher, “Since then, Je suis fou de Vava, has spread around the world. It has sold over 6,000 copies.”

With the second book in the series,
La fête des morts, (The Day of the Dead), Laferrière through the character of “Old Bones” (Papa Legba) uses the symbols of butterflies to tell a story about the “mysteries of love and death.”

Via Repeating Islands
***