Book Review: A Morning at the Office by Edgar Mittelholzer

When I first held the latest edition of A Morning at the Office between my hands, I did so with fear and trembling. Thirty years ago, I’d read the novel on a Sunday afternoon (when I was supposed to be in church) and the memory stayed with me. In fact, along with Miguel Street by VS Naipaul and Voices Under the Window by John Hearne, Morning served as a model for my own storytelling. Now as a part of Peepal Tree’s Caribbean Modern Classics, I returned to the novel hoping that that in re-reading, it would still have the same appeal.


I am happy to say that Morning is still a winner. Mittelholzer’s story in which Horace Xavier, the black office boy at Essential Products, has fallen in love with Nanette Hinckson, the coloured secretary of Everard Murrain, an Englishman, is still as entertaining as when it was first published in 1950. All of the passions and jealousies of office life are still present. And even the intrigues. So when Xavier leaves a poem from As You Like It on Ms. Hinckson’s desk, the drama over colour, class, and ethnicity unfolds:

“He [Xavier] considered that it was foolish of him to have become enamoured of this lady…he should have remembered that he was only a black boy, whereas she was a coloured lady of good family. He was dark brown; hers was a pale olive. His hair was kinky; hers was full of large waves and gleaming. He was a poor boy, the son of a cook; she was well off and of good education and good breeding. He was low class; she was middle class” (29).

What begins as a young man’s folly of falling in love with an older woman (which young man hasn’t?) quickly evolves into a conflict of race and class which implicates every member of the office. What is impressive, given the time of the original publication, is that Mittelholzer is careful not to present the characters as stereotypes, even though the characters react to each other based on race and class stereotypes. For the reader, Mr. Jagabir, the office accountant, becomes an object of scorn not because of his Indian lineage, but his obsequiousness. However, Mr. Jagabir does not interpret the events in this way. Neither does his coworkers. Nor is he aware that his behaviors encourage the stereotypes that he wishes to avoid. A scene with Mr. Lopez, a Spanish Creole, demonstrates Mittelholzer’s skill:

“He [Mr. Lopez] turned his head as Mr. Jagabir’s chair scraped. He saw the bulge in Mr. Jagabir’s coat pocket – and the grease stain. The grease from the roti had seeped through… (199).”

Whether Mr. Jagabir’s behavior is as a result of frugality or ethnic identity depends on the reader’s biases. However, for many of the other characters, with the exception of Edna Bisnauth, the assistant stenotypist and closet poet, their reactions are based on perceptions of race, class, and ethnicity. The ensuing actions from Xavier’s innocent gesture reveal Mittelholzer's skill, which elucidates the conflicts without falling prey to the inherent constructs.


A Morning at the Office has earned its place in the Caribbean literary canon. For despite Mittelholzer’s dalliance with “telescopic objectivity,” Morning is an artfully plotted story of unrequited love. Xavier, like many of the other characters in the novel, learns that love tests the ego’s defenses to discover worthiness. Morning’s exploration of the race and class demons that haunt our lives is exemplary. But it also proves that every classic must first be a good story.

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What is a Caribbean Classic?: Charmaine Valere

Huck Finn in the tropics?

So I’m having a conversation with a friend about our favourite books of all time, and he says one of his is Huckleberry Finn. Now he has never studied literature in America, and his literature studies in the Caribbean were not American-bent. In fact, the books he read in school included works by Naipaul, Selvon, Rhone, and others from the Caribbean. That he not only read Huck Finn (1885), but also identified with its characters and messages, is testament to the power of a literary classic.


The power to transcend time and place (have a certain universal appeal) though, is probably the latter part of the story about what comprises a classic work of literature. A classic should first capture the essence of a particular time and place, it should express some artistic quality, it should have been around long enough to stand the test of time and to merit lasting recognition, and it should make connections between other writers and other great works of literature (i.e., show some acknowledgement of previous greats).


The caveat…


I’d have very little problems identifying and discussing the classic qualities of many of the canonized works by American writers, particularly the ones that are forever on the syllabi of literature courses in American high schools, colleges and universities, but, I don’t feel as comfortable talking about Caribbean classics. I’m also not comfortable applying the definition I give above to the Caribbean classic. I am not implying that the Caribbean classic should be held to some lesser standard of assessment; I’m simply being cautious about applying my mostly Westernized way of thinking (and way of applying paradigms) to writings that I am not ready to assess collectively in a theoretic manner.


For one thing, the Caribbean classics I can talk about to some degree are relatively new—the oldest dates back 70 years or so, and most of the others are from the 1980s—which would make them modern classics or contemporary classics. Plus, it’s questionable how well-known the Caribbean classics I’ll mention are. Some may have had more “outside” than local appeal. So, there must necessarily be at least two asterisks to applying my definition of classic to the Caribbean classic: having stood the test of time is relative to the age of the “canon,” and “universal appeal” is relative to a variety of factors concerning where and how the classic was published and shared…


(Huge mouthful for tek wha me seh wid a dose a salts.)


But on with it anyway...


I would personally enjoy discussing the classic qualities of Naipaul’s Miguel Street, Walcott’s Dream on Monkey Mountain, or Lamming’s In the Castle of My Skin, but duty beckons elsewhere. My signifyin’ Guyana journey dictates that I focus on works by Guyanese writers—-a journey that is by no means over and is therefore incomplete.


Who and what amongst Guyanese writers and writing should be considered classic?


Edgar Mittelholzer, of course. He is credited with being the first professional novelist to come out of the English-speaking Caribbean. His themes, which capture a certain mood and sentiment of the Berbice area in Guyana’s history, as well as his handling of a broader condition of ethnic identity in Guyana, ethnic relations, and folklore in My Bones and My Flute (1955), Corentyne Thunder (1941), and Shadows Move Among Them (1951)--full of influences from Edgar Allen Poe and other greats of the mystery / macabre genre--would certainly earn him a place on a list of Caribbean classics.


Another indisputable classic Guyanese writer would be Martin Carter whose collection of Poems of Resistance from British Guyana (1954) captures the essence of a particular and a general colonial experience in Guyana.


Ian McDonald, described by Jamaican professor and scholar, Edward Baugh, as the Robert Frost of South America, would also be undeniably deserving of a place on a list of Caribbean classics. His poems and short stories, which span an impressive length of time—-from the 1950s to the present—-are marked with Caribbean characters and places that should be fittingly memorialized in a Caribbean canon of classic writing. So too are David Dabydeen’s characters in his early works-—particularly those in Coolie Odyssey—-deserving of a place in a Caribbean canon of classic writing.


Walter Rodney is probably best know for his political activism, and his style of sharing and developing his beliefs about race, politics, culture, e.t.c., and much of his style, his art of argumentation (Socratic mostly) can be found in his writing. His influential argument of the nature of the slave trade in How Europe Underdeveloped Africa should definitely be included in a list of Caribbean classic writings.


A major portion of Guyanese art was created to be experienced visually or aurally. Because of that much of the groundbreaking work by influential artists—poets, playwrights, e.t.c.—was never made into “book” form. Should that fact exclude them from being considered in a category of Caribbean classic writing? Some may understandably say yes. After all, any work deemed classic should be visible to all and should be in a form which can easily be passed on if it truly merits lasting recognition. Much of Wordsworth McAndrew’s work is not in collected written form, at least not yet. But we do have many anthologized sightings of his “Ol’ Higue,” which has stood the test of time as a standard form of storytelling that includes elements of folklore and the didactic. “Ol’ Higue” certainly belongs in a canon of Caribbean classic.


A major portion of stellar Guyanese writing is being done outside of Guyana. No surprise there considering migration numbers that continue to rise decade after decade. Two Guyanese writers—John Agard and Grace Nichols—have lived in the UK since the 1970s and have steadily been producing recognizably good work since the 1980s. Agard’s poem “Half-caste,” a series of musings on identity by a person of mixed ethnicity is a fixed presence on the English GCSE syllabus. His major themes of recovery from cultural / historical loss and ethnic identity have made him universally appealing, and he is deserving of being included in a list of Caribbean classics. So too is his partner Grace Nichols, whose collection I is a Long Memoried Woman (1983) won a Commonwealth prize (among other awards and praise). She has been recognized for her spirited handlings of gender, body, and identity in her works.


An abrupt ending for now...


Any list of Caribbean classics ultimately has to be the responsibility of Caribbean people wherever we are. And we’re not only responsible for creating a canon, but also for passing it on, discussing it, writing essays and dissertations on it, reading and rereading it, keeping it in print or visible in some form, and adding to it as time goes on.


What I have said here is but a small part of what should be an ongoing, multi-faceted act of preservation and pride in our art forms.






About the author:


Charmaine Valere is a literature adjunct professor at Bloomfield College in New Jersey. Born in Guyana, she writes about Guyanese and Caribbean literature at www.signifyinguyana.typepad.com.

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Back in Print: A Morning at the Office by Edgar Mittelholzer

If ever there was a Caribbean classic, A Morning at the Office is surely one of them.


From four minutes to seven, when the aspiring black office-boy, Horace Xavier, opens up the premises of Essential Products Ltd in Port of Spain in 1947 and leaves a love poem in the in-tray of the unattainable, high-brown Nanette Hinckson, to noon when the poetic Miss Jagabir is the last to leave for lunch, the reader is privy to the interactions and inner feelings of the characters who make up the office’s microcosm.


Expatriate English, Coloured Creoles of various shades, Chinese, East Indians and Trinidadian Blacks (and a sympathetically presented gay man), all find ample scope for schemes and fantasies – and wounded feelings when they think their positions on the scale of colour and class are being incorrectly categorised, or when those at the bottom are reminded of their position.


Enlivened by the inventive device of “telescopic objectivity” and a humane comedic touch, Mittelholzer’s classic novel of 1950 challenges the present to declare honestly whether his news is old.


Edgar Mittelholzer was born in British Guiana in 1909. He wrote more than twenty novels. He eventually settled in England, where he lived until his death in 1965, a suicide predicted in several of his novels.

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What is a Caribbean Classic?: Opal Palmer Adisa

Defining a Caribbean Aesthetic: The Making of a Caribbean Classic

By Opal Palmer Adisa

When we think about Caribbean literature, we must include the oral literature that was shared with us in the tales and folklores and which many contemporary writers revise, update, and incorporate in their poems, stories, and drama. To discount this tremendous body of work is a mindless disregard of our ancestors and we stymie our literary evolution as a people, creating an aborted trajectory.


Similarly, as we look to define and erect a Caribbean classic, we must be mindful that the whole notion of classic in the modern sense is erroneous because the Greeks are cited as the stamp. However, as educated people, we know that the Egyptians are the forerunners; their formidable library at Alexandria was raided and destroyed by the pillage of war--much like what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then, of course, there is Timbuktu that also served as a foundation. History aside, or rather, history as cautionary guide, a classic is a work that sets the standard, serves as a archetype and is not restricted to a certain era --in other words, the work can be said to be timeless because regardless of how much time has passed or how things have changed, the work serves as a light allowing us to see,  understand, and make inferences not only about the time period in which the work was set, but how it continuously references and illuminates our understanding of the present moment in which we find ourselves.


Of course, with regards to the Caribbean, a classic would have to speak to the socio-political conditions of the people and be dogged in its revelation of hope and viable alternatives. It must demonstrate, to the nth degree, the Caribbean ethos, delineate our cosmology, excavate a self that is so often hidden from us, and speak with authority to the possibilities of new realities and self-determination.


Most importantly, a Caribbean classic should give us a protagonist that represents and/or identifies with the seemingly ordinary Caribbean person, yet who in someway leads an introspective life and strives to rise above her/his socio-physical surroundings.


While it can be argued and debated that such criteria for a classic, favors a specific agenda, which it does, and which all classics do, I believe as Caribbean people we have to forge an identity and standard that speak to the specifics of who we are, and even more importantly, where we want to go, even if that path is not yet defined – machete in hand, we clear the path as we go along. In addition, to the above, a classic work of literature should have literary merit: assiduous mastery of language, unique and representational characters, descriptive details, multiple layers of meanings, and for me, very personal and, I strongly believe essential for the Caribbean, a sense of hope. 


Given our young history as producers of literature, we hold our own: two Nobel laureates, Neustadt International Prize, Guggenheims, and many Commonwealth prizes. Equally as impressive is the larger number of recognized writers who continue to produce excellent work despite our economic straits, access to higher education in the region, our total population, and median age. Still, we accomplish and compete, and can say with pride we have literary works that are part of the Euro-American canon, and which also set the bench-mark for the Caribbean canon.


Consequently, I offer the following four texts as Caribbean classics, and will go so far as to say they should be included in any survey course on Caribbean literature. The History of Mary Prince serves as the first account of the life of a black woman to be published in England. Its historical merit is unprecedented, but the details and vigor of the telling is also impressive. Then, we have another autobiography, by yet another intrepid woman, Mary Seacole, the Caribbean’s own Florence Nightingale--a herbalist, and shrewd business woman whose financial acumen allowed her to travel to the site of the Crimean War and where she became a beloved caregiver to soldiers on both sides. Her explorations and brave story are chronicled in the Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands (1857).


Moving to the 20th century, we have Edgar Mittelholzer, the first professional novelist to come out of the English-speaking Caribbean, and the author of twenty plus novels. My favorite from among his body of work and I think one of his best is, Corentyne Thunder (1941). Who can read that text and not root for Ramgolall, an empathic protagonist, if ever there was one. Lastly and noteworthy, is Sylvia Wynter’s Hills of Hebron (1962), in which Wynter speaks to and for the nation of Jamaica.


These are some of the seminal Caribbean classics that shimmer still today, and which will captivate and send future readers on a quest to learn more about Caribbean writers, culture and its people.

***

About the author:

Jamaican born, Dr. Adisa is a poet and prose writer who brings extensive editorial experience to the anthology. She has published 14 books, and her writings have appeared in over 200 journals and anthologies. She is also a much sought-after speaker and has traveled throughout the United States, Europe, South America, and the Caribbean.

She has been recognized for her work in the form of many awards and honors, among them the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award for her poetry collection Tamarind and Mango Women and the Master Folk Artist Award for Storytelling from the California Arts Council. She has also received awards for both poetry and fiction from The Caribbean Writer and has served as an Advisory Board member of The Caribbean Writer since 1998. Her interview with renowned poet Kamau Brathwaite appears in Volume 23 (2009). Dr. Erika J. Waters, founding editor of The Caribbean Writer said she was "delighted the magazine was in such capable hands."

Adisa, who has a doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley, most recently was a professor at California College of the Arts. She previously taught both graduate and undergraduate courses at several universities including Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco State University.

***

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What is a Caribbean Classic?

Recently I’ve seen the phrase “Caribbean classic” appearing in the Comments section of my blog, so naturally I asked myself the question: What is a Caribbean classic?


I’ve invited a few writers and critics to write a guest post with his or her definition of “Caribbean classic,” and to give me at least one example of a novel, a collection of short stories or poetry that he or she considers to be a Caribbean classic.


If you would like to join the conversation, please e-mail your guest post to me (geoffreyphilp101 [at] gmail.com as a Word attachment. Please include a short bio and recent digital photo (.jpg).

***

A few caveats:

All submissions are subject to review, editing, and approval.

Geoffrey Philp's Blog Spot promotes the free distribution and use of articles published on this site. I use the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. The use of this license means that authors retain their copyright while granting the blog and our readers’ the rights to this work for non-commercial purposes, providing the author is credited. The Creative Commons license allows for the production of derivative works, as long as the author is credited, and as long as producers share their derivative work.

For more information, please visit the Creative Commons at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/.

Introduction to Caribbean Literature: Dr. Heather Russell

Dr. Heather Russell’s research interests examine narrative form and its relationship to configurations of national/racial identities. Her forthcoming book, Legba’s Crossing: Narratology in the African Atlantic, will published by the University of of Georgia Press. She has also published in African American Review; Contours; The Massachusetts Review; and American Literature and has essays in a collection on John Edgar Wideman, Jacqueline Bishop’s My Mother Who is Me and Donna Aza Weir-Soley and Opal Palmer Adisa’s Caribbean Erotic.

At the undergraduate level, Andrade regularly teaches C19th and C20th African American Literatures; Major Caribbean Writers; Black Citizenships and Black History and the Fictive Imagination. For the graduate curriculum, she teaches African Diaspora Women Writers and Narratives of Enslavement and Resistance.

Heather Russell grew up in Jamaica and attended St. Andrew High School for girls. Legba’s Crossing is available for pre-order at Barnes & Noble and Amazon

Presentation for the Florida Humanities Council Florida Center for Teachers (K-12)

By Heather Russell, Ph.D.

Anglophone: Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, St. Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Lucia, Grenada, Belize, Anguilla, Cayman, British Virgin Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guyana, The Bahamas.

Hispanophone: Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico

Francophone: Haiti, Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana

A Few Definitions

Derek Walcott’s description for Caribbean geo-spatiality in which individual island-states are reconceived as a group – and term is metonymic for Caribbean peoples who are themselves navigating national/regional configurations and identities.

For Antonio Benitez-Rojo the Caribbean is conceived as a “repeating island” – a meta-archipelago which has no center/periphery and hence reconfigures conventional conceptualization of colonial paradigms: center-margin, core-periphery, metropole-outpost. The Caribbean is thus polyrhythmic – or like “a ray of light with a prism.”

The Limbo Gateway

The Middle Passage is the site where New World identities are born: former African identities become disassembled and new world African identities get reassembled. 

Wilson Harris calls this the "limbo gateway." Caribbean literature is thus produced by the "limbo imagination."

Colonial Values

Caribbean Values

English/Spanish/French Protestant/Catholic Reality v. Fantasy/Myth Fact v. Fiction History: linear, causal Literature: 7 elements: Meaning,Form, Narration, Tone, Character, Use of Language, Structure

Nation Languages: Creoles Vodoun, Santeria, Obeah Magical Realism Storytelling Historiography: Great Time Literatures

Literary Comparison of Elements

Colonial Literature	Caribbean literatures
Meaning: fixed, clear, identifiable Form: genre identifiable Narrative Voice: principle narrating subject (epic) Character: archetypal, fixed Use of Language: consistent Structure: parallelism, linearity,etc.	Meaning: flexible, indeterminate Form: mixed genres Narrative Voice: multiple narrating subjects (jazz) Character: unstable, fluid Use of Language: mixed Structure: hybrid, asymmetrical, disruption of linearity

Caribbean "Quilted Discourse" 

Carole Boyce Davies and Elaine Savory Fido’s concept of the “quilted structure” of Caribbean women’s writing as a reconfiguration of fragmentation (modernist angst) and linearity (phallocentricity).

No Telephone to Heaven by Michelle Cliff

We are a fragmented people. My experience as a writer coming from a culture of colonialism, a culture of black people riven from each other, my struggle to get wholeness from fragmentation while working within fragmentation, producing work which may find its strength in its depiction of fragmentation, through form as well as content.

The truck struggled on up through the Cockpits. Its side was painted with the motto…NO TELEPHONE TO HEAVEN. How these words had come to him [the owner] they did not know…NO TELEPHONE TO HEAVEN. No Voice to God. A waste to try…the motto suited them…Depression. Downpressions. Oppression. Recession. Intercession. Commission. Omission. Missionaries…all the same t’ing mi dear.

We is in Babylon. Yes mi dear Bredda. NO TELEPHONE TO HEAVEN. Maybe the line it is engaged and God can’t bodder wid de likes of we. God nuh mus’ be Hinglish…But how could Massa God be their enemy? The seawater which hid their history was not at fault. The moon which lit the sea…the blue mountains. The black widow. The brown widow. The thick stands of Black Mangrove.

None of these were the enemy.

They were tired of praying for those that persecuted them. (17)

*No Telephone repetition like a jazz riff; Blended prose-poetic form; Platform English/Jamaican blended.

Jazz and the West Indian Novel

“Jazz and the West Indian Novel" by Kamau Brathwaite

The jazz novel in the normal course of things, will hardly be an epic. Dealing with a specific, clearly-defined, folk-type community, it will try to express the essence of this community through its form.

History of the Voice by Kamau Brathwaite

It is not language, but people who make revolutions. I think however, that language does really have a role to play here, certainly in the Caribbean. But it is an English [French/Spanish] that is not the standard, imported, educated English, …It is what I call, as I say, nation language. I use the term in contrast to dialect…Dialect is thought of as “bad” English. Dialect is “inferior” English. Dialect is the language when you want to make fun of someone. Caricature speaks in dialect…Nation Language on the other hand, is the submerged area of that dialect that is much more closely allied to the African aspect of experience in the Caribbean. It may be in English, but often it is in an English which is like a howl, or a shout, or a machine-gun, or the wind, or a wave. It is also like the blues.(266).

A “JAZZ” NOVEL

Salt by Earl Lovelace

Watch the landscape of this island…and you know they coulda never hold people here surrendered to unfreedom.’ The sky, the sea, every green leaf and tangle of vines sing freedom.

Four hundred years it take them to find out that you can’t keep people in captivity. Four hundred years! And it didn’t happen just so. People had to revolt. People had to poison people. Port-of-Spain had to burn down. A hurricane had to hit the island. Haiti had to defeat Napoleon. People had to run away up the mountains. People had to fight. And then they agree, yes. We can’t hold people in captivity here.

But now they had another problem: it was not how to keep people in captivity. It was how to set people at liberty (7).

*History v. Historiography. This excerpt provides both alternative/resistant history to conventional narrative of Slavery and Emancipation and alternative/resistant historiography: through its form.

Migration Stories

Home	Adopted Country
Developing nations: post-independence, post-industrial, globalization Political upheavals: political instability, economic instability Colonialism’s legacies: class/color stratification Cultural homogeneity: religioussyncretism, creoles/nation languages, music, dance,food, customs, sports, national pride	Developed nation: free market, economic alienation for many immigrants: credit system, legal status issues, underemployment Political stability: high numbers of non-citizenship, limited representation Racism, ethnocentrism Cultural diversity: cultural enclaves, nostalgia, displacement, cultural memory, border crossings

Migration Story 1
 

Let It Rain Coffee: A Novel by Angie Cruz

The more she bought, the more insatiable she became. -God, can you help me out here? she asked, hoping he’d help her win the lottery she played on Sundays. Within days of her prayers, she found a letter in the mail. Esperanza Colon: You have been preapproved. After working as a home health attendant for five years, Esperanza was eligible for a credit card, her very own five-hundred-dollar credit card…Days later another latter arrived. You have been preapproved for up to 1,000 dollars. Preapproved. Esperanza mouthed the words in front of the mirror…it felt good to get some approval for once…When the bills came, Esperanza put them in a drawer. She planned to pay them when she had extra money…And when she reached the credit card’s limit…she filed the credit card itself in the drawer, expecting to pay it all one day, little by little” (33-4).

Migration Story 2:

Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat

My mother came forward...She tried to lift my body into the front seat but she stumbled under my weight…She did not look like the picture Tantie Atie had on her night table…she had dark circles under her eyes…her fingers were scarred and sunburned. It was a though she had never stopped working in the cane fields after all…
…Am I the mother you imagined?” ...as a child, the mother I imagined for myself was like Erzulie, the lavish Virgin Mother. She was the healer of all women and the desire of all men…” In the mirror…new eyes seemed to be looking back at me…a new face altogether. Someone who had aged in one day, as though she had been through a time machine, rather than an airplane. Welcome to New York, this face seemed to be saying: Accept your new life. I greeted the challenged as one greets a new day. As my mother’s daughter and Tantie Atie’s child (59; 49).

Two South Florida Caribbean Poets

Florida Bound by Geoffrey Philp

Florida Bound

For our exile will never end until we free
of those who teach only the whip and rope.
And black man still can’t live in him own
black land without facing the drawn bayonets
of those who exact lives as payment, who disown
with a kiss our martyrs, our prophets.
so we end in the hot and homeless cities
of the South to be free of them.
The last dry months, like bitter molasses.
Tired of dreams, New Jerusalems.

First Rain by Donna Aza Weir-Soley

Migratory Patterns

It’s natural for birds to fly south in winter but we fly north in every season
leaving warmth in search of dreams
that sometimes leave us cold.
Like birds of a feather we fly in formation,
vulnerable at hunting season
yet do not stop or break our ranks
when one of us falls victim
to the hunters’ need for feathery trophies…
…It is natural for birds to fly south in winter,
But Caribbean people fly north in every season
Leaving the warmth of familiarity and family
In search of dreams that sometimes leave us freezing in the snow.

Epilogue

Caribbean Discourse by Edouard Glissant

History [with a capital H] ends where the histories of those peoples once reputed to be without history come together.

The struggle against a single History for the cross-fertilization of histories means repossessing both a true sense of one’s time and identity: proposing in a new unprecedented way a revaluation of power.

***

Important Related Post: Toward a Floribbean Literature.  Speculative theory about the creation of a sub-genre of Caribbean-American and Caribbean writing in the diaspora:The work of Caribbean-American authors living in Florida.

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Books by Geoffrey Philp

Master of the Tragicomic: Trevor D. Rhone (1940-2009)

One of the most gut-busting, laugh out loud moments I experienced in a theater was when Oliver Samuels stepped on stage wearing a gas mask in the play School’s Out which was written and directed by Trevor D. Rhone. This giant of Caribbean theatre died today at the age of 69.

Rhone’s great strength as a writer was his ability to weave memorable characters, born out of the matrix of Jamaican history and culture, into a text that always contained biting social commentary. He was also one of the funniest playwrights in the Caribbean. Another of those hilarious moments that Rhone created, this time in film, that I’ll never forget was in Smile Orange: “I can’t swim, Miss Doris. I can’t swim.”

Of course, Trevor Rhone will be remembered for coauthoring, The Harder They Come, the film that brought reggae and the cruelties of the Jamaican ghettoes uptown. Ever since Ivanhoe Martin, singer and gun man, stepped into our celluloid imagination, the world has never been the same.

Trevor Rhone’s tragicomic vision and his abilty to portray the harsh realities of Jamaican life while never losing his sense of humor will remain unrivalled in Caribbean theatre for a long time. His unique voice will be missed when the curtain falls, and the lights will be dimmer throughout the Caribbean.

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Photo Credit: Jamaica Observer

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• The Caribbean and Its Cultural Arts: When Will We Begin To Recognize It? 

Top Ten Caribbean Theatre Classics: Results

First, give thanks to all who participated by submitting and voting. This has been an educational experience for me and I hope that I'll be able to do more posts like this.

I'd also like to thank Cheryl Williams, who proposed the topic, and I hope this was helpful for all the teachers who read and contribute to this blog.

The Results

The two that were omitted on the last vote were as follows:

In the Beautiful Caribbean by Barry Reckord

Pantomime by Derek Walcott

They both received 4% of the total vote.

Vote for the Top Ten Caribbean Theatre Classics

First, 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

Submissions: 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

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Top Ten Caribbean Theatre Classics

Cheryl Williams, an English Literature teacher working with adolescents and the CSEC English Literature syllabus, has asked me to assist her in compiling a Caribbean theatre “list of classics.”

Similar to the “Name Your Top Ten Caribbean Novels,” this survey will be conducted in two rounds.



Round One will run May 4, 2009--May 15, 2009. Readers will be asked to submit the names of 12 plays that they consider to be classics of Caribbean theatre.

Round Two will run May 18, 2009—May 29, 2009. Readers will be asked to vote on the results of Round One.

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

In order to make this as representative as possible, please spread the word by linking and/or e-mailing this post to your colleagues.

1Love,

Geoffrey

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Happy Earth Day

Everglades Litany

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