Author Event: Christine Craig @ Dania Beach Public Library

Christine Craig

There was a distinct womanist tone in Christine Craig’s’ reading from Poems: All Things Bright & Quadrille for Tigers at the Dania Beach Public Library on April 30, 2011. Whether she was reading “Portland Morning” or the heartbreaking “Ofrenda,” the precision of her Ms. Craig’s craft was always evident.

Nadine Bradley-Taylor

It was also a surprise to hear Nadine Bradley-Taylor read “St. Ann Morning” and “Elsa’s Version,” with the necessary abandon that these poems deserve. Christine is a naturally reticent person so it was a brilliant choice to have Ms. Bradley-Taylor read these poems, especially “Elsa’s Version, which confronts the hypocrisy of the patriarchal politics:

All dem big talk:

“Women are our natural resources

Women are the back bone

of the country”

with the frank rebuttal:

You rass man

stop put we down

in dutty song or

high-up editorial

And just as the intensity of the voice in the poem raised the stakes vocally, Ms. Bradley-Taylor matched the ending with the perfect pitch:

Till day day come

                     Lef me alone

                     an me modda

                     an me sista

                     an me gal-pickney.

The reading ended (after three encores) with several moving tributes by Jean Lowrie-Chin and Karl “Jerry” Craig both of whom urged Ms. Craig to “stop holding back” in publicizing her work.

I couldn't agree more.

Jean Lowrie-Chin

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