Showing posts with label Derek Walcott. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Derek Walcott. Show all posts

February 12, 2019

New Book: "Saint Lucian Writers and Writing"


John Robert Lee

Papillote Press announces the forthcoming publication of "Saint Lucian Writers and Writing: An author index of published works of poetry, prose, and drama" compiled and edited by the Saint Lucian librarian and poet Robert John Lee, with an introduction by Antonia MacDonald. 

"A fascinating bibliography that turns a list into the life of a nation."

Publication date: 1 March 2019
ISBN: 9780995726314
Paperback/price: £9.99

Papillote Press is a small independent publishing house based in London and Dominica.

ABOUT THIS BOOK: This superb author index of poetry, prose and drama explores the writing landscape of a small Caribbean island. Everyone – from the internationally acclaimed Derek Walcott, to self-published unknowns – are there. But this bibliography is not just about literature, it also features the social, political and cultural dimensions of Saint Lucia, from scholarly essays to the ephemera of funeral pamphlets and recipe books. It turns a list into the life of a nation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: John Robert Lee is a Saint Lucian poet, author, editor, journalist, professional librarian, and teacher. His poetry and short stories have been widely anthologised. His latest collection of poems, Collected Poems 1975-2015 was published in 2017. A graduate of the University of the West Indies, he has taught literature, creative writing, and library science for many years. He has also worked as a journalist in newspapers, radio, and television. He lives in Saint Lucia. 

IN PRAISE of Saint Lucian Writers and Writing:
John Robert Lee’s bibliographical work is a magnificent act of scholarship that brings the rich and long history of Saint Lucian literary culture to life. Both record and tribute, this inclusive and educative bibliographical study includes an important introduction on the publication history and print culture of Saint Lucia. A work of literary heritage in itself, this study also actively engages publishers and researchers with an eye on the future as well as the past. — Professor Alison Donnell, University of East Anglia, UK

Here you can see everything— the things that didn’t last, the things that did, the things that should have but didn’t. Here is the heft of a fierce and devoted memory of all of our literature. And of what value is it? Well, it is a record of trials and failures, a record of what time kept and what it didn’t, though memory lunges back to claim it with an almost filial affection. — Vladimir Lucien, poet, Saint Lucia

Compiled with the sensitivity of the poet he is and the scrupulousness of the archivist many know him to be, John Robert Lee’s Saint Lucian Writers and Writing is vital work...This is a great start to discovering what the storytellers of one country have been busy building with words—and we’re talking beyond the usual suspects. — Robert Edison Sandiford, author of the novel And Sometimes They Fly, and editor (with Linda M. Deane) of Shouts from the Outfield: The ArtsEtc Cricket Anthology, Barbados

Always, I am in awe of the industry, the monk-like devotion that John Robert Lee brings to the self-chosen obligation of chronicling aspects of our artistic history... In what seems like a season of neglect — and indeed destruction — of our artistic and cultural heritage, this bibliography is an ark. And gratitude is joyfully rendered to its builder. — Kendel Hippolyte, poet/playwright, Saint Lucia

John Robert Lee has produced this voluminous social reference document for the world...A great gift to Saint Lucia. Give thanks! — Embert Charles, communications specialist/cultural administrator, Saint Lucia

All the world has heard of the late Sir Derek Walcott. But there have been many other Saint Lucian writers of note, some of them with a regional reputation in the Caribbean, others still little read outside of — or even within — Saint Lucia itself. John Robert Lee’s Saint Lucian Writers and Writing offers the first comprehensive bibliography of Saint Lucian literature...As both scholar and general reader, I am grateful to John Robert Lee for this comprehensive guide. — Paul Breslin, Professor of English, Emeritus, Northwestern University, United States, and author of Nobody's Nation: Reading Derek Walcott 

For more information visit the website www.papillotepress.co.uk or email info@papillotepress.co.uk

March 21, 2017

Sir Derek Alton Walcott, (23 January 1930 – 17 March 2017)



And I answer, Anna,
twenty years after,
a man lives half of life,
the second half is memory,

the first half, hesitation
for what should have happened
but could not, or

what happened with others
when it should not

~from Another Life


***

January 28, 2014

Visions & Voices: Conversations with Fourteen Caribbean Playwrights


For those interested in theatre and Caribbean literature, 2014 marks the release of a seminal collection, Olivier Stephenson's Visions & Voices: Conversations with Fourteen CaribbeanPlaywrights.

Featuring the words of the most important of the first generation of postcolonial playwrights-some of whom are still alive-this exploration presents expansive personalities such as Errol Hill, Errol John, Trevor Rhone, and Dennis Scott, discussing their experiences of working in the Caribbean, the UK and North America; their struggles to survive as artists; perceptions of the relationship between their work and the region's socio-political condition; views on the relationship between their work and the art of other playwrights; and their attempts to build popular audiences and develop a Caribbean theatre aesthetic.

"Without exception, these playwrights were engaged artists and their work never lost sight of the sociopolitical dynamics of the region. For this reason, their words offer us a way to understand, at least in part, the role of the playwright in Caribbean society. I sincerely believe that a lot of what was said in the interviews still holds true to the present time." ~ Kwame Dawes.

Visions & Voices: Conversationswith Fourteen Caribbean Playwrights is a unique collection of interviews with prominent Caribbean playwrights of the 1970s: Derek Walcott, Errol Hill, Errol John, Michael Abbensetts, Trevor Rhone, Alwyn Bully, Roderick Walcott, Edgar White, Slade Hopkinson, Lennox Brown, Carmen Tipling, Dennis Scott, Stafford Ashani Harrison and Mustapha Matura.

About Olivier Stephenson

Olivier Stephenson is a poet, a playwright, a screenwriter, and a journalist. He is the former executive director and a founding member of the Caribbean American Repertory Theatre in New York City and Los Angeles. He currently lives in Miami, Florida.

Publication date: 1 December 2013

ISBN: 9781845231736
Pages: 436
Price: £19.99 /$39.95
Publisher: Peepal Tree Press
17 King's Avenue, Leeds, LS6 1QS, United Kingdom
Tel/Fax: +44 (0)113 2451703
www.peepaltreepress.com

About the Press

Peepal Tree Press is home of the best in Caribbean and Black British fiction, poetry, literary criticism, memoirs and historical studies.

Peepal Tree is a wholly independent company based in Leeds, founded in 1985, and now publishing around 25 books a year. We have published over 250 titles, and are committed to keeping them in print. The list features new writers and established voices. In 2009 we launched the Caribbean Modern Classics Series, which restores to print essential classic books from the 1930s - 70s. We are grateful for financial support from Arts Council England. We are also home to Inscribe, a national project which supports writers of African & Asian descent.

Review Copies

For review copies, images, interviews or for more information email hannah@peepaltreepress.com


May 6, 2013

The Four Tribes of Anglophone Caribbean Literature



There's an old saying about your children keeping you young, and for the past week, I've seen the wisdom of that adage. My children love comics and frequently send me links to interesting stories about superhero movies or TED talks. One TED talk that caught my attention was Scott McCloud on Comics.

In his TED talk, McCloud developed a theory about comics and artists based on Jung's theory of the four basic functions of the psyche: sensation, intuition, thinking, and feeling.

According to Jung, the psyche is an apparatus for adaptation and orientation, and consists of a number of different psychic functions. Among these he distinguishes four basic functions:

Sensation—perception by means of the sense organs
Intuition—perceiving in unconscious way or perception of unconscious contents
Thinking—function of intellectual cognition; the forming of logical conclusions
Feeling—function of subjective estimation

From these four types, McCloud has extrapolated four types of artists, Classicists, Animists, Formalists, and Iconoclasts, which he divided into four quadrants representing different attitudes toward beauty and truth; life and art; content and style; tradition and revolution.


The Classicists admire craftsmanship and mastery of the art form. Their goals include creating lasting works of art which adhere to traditional aesthetic principles. Perfection is impossible, but that doesn't mean they can't try for it. According to McCloud, their catch-word is beauty, and they are an extension of Jung's sensation archetype.

The Animists are interested in content. They aim for the clearest presentation of their story or ideas. To some extent the medium must always interfere with the message, but the animist's focus on the content means they try to make the form as transparent as they possibly can. Their catch-word is content, and McCloud considers them an extension of Jung's intuition archetype.

The Formalists are fascinated with their chosen medium's form. They create their art to explore its boundaries and contours, to learn what it can be capable of and how it works internally. Their works of art incorporate experiments, and they often double as analytical critics. Their catch-word is form, and in McCloud's scheme they correspond to Jung's thinking archetype.

The Iconoclasts value truth and experience in art. To them art must be authentic, must show life as it is. They take aim at artistic conventions that gloss over the imperfections and disappointments at life. Artists who speak of "honesty" or "rawness" are voicing iconoclastic ideas. Their catch-word is truth, and they are Jung's feeling archetype.


As Jon Aquino states, "playing around with this, it's interesting to deduce that":

Tradition = Sensation + Intuition
Revolution = Thinking + Feeling
Art = Sensation + Thinking
Life = Intuition + Feeling
Revolution + Art = Form
Tradition + Life = Content
Art + Tradition = Beauty
Life + Revolution = Truth


As Mr. Trombley notes: "Each of these have specific reservations about the mediocre works of other three:

1. The Classicist accuses the animist of simplicity, the formalist of meaninglessness, and the iconoclast of ugliness
2. The Animist accuses the classicist of pointless overdrawing, the formalist of unnecessary density, and the iconoclast of pretentiousness
3. The Formalist accuses the classicist of artistic conservatism, the animist of pointlessness, and the iconoclast of self-absorption
4. The Iconoclast accuses the classicist of soullessness, the animist of dullness, and the formalist of meaningless abstraction


Damien G Walter continues with his observations:

Animists are the first artists, the shamen dancing around the tribal fire who drag raw emotion from their soul and give it to the audience. They are the instinctual artists, concerned above all with content.

Classicists worship at the altar of beauty, and yearn to create art that achieves greatness. They believe in objective standards of good and bad, and establish the canon of great artists who embody those ideals.

Iconoclasts are either the first against the wall when the revolution comes, or at the front leading the charge. They use art as a means of personal and political expression, and when asked will say that they value truth over all else.

Formalists love talking about art almost as much as they enjoy creating it. They are the experimenters of any given art, obsessing about details of style and technique in their own work and the work of others.

The real fun begins when you start to look at synergies and conflicts that exist between the tribes. Between the Classicists and Animists is the shared belief that tradition is important, a belief which both the Formalists and Iconoclasts give the finger to in favour of revolution and change. However, the Formalists and Classicists both believe first and foremost in the value of art, whereas Animists and Iconoclasts both make art secondary to life.

These might seem fairly arbitrary distinctions, until you relate them to those unending arguments in the arts, which start to look like ongoing territorial squabbles between competing tribes. What is the age-old debate between truth and beauty, if not a fight between the Classicists and the Iconoclasts? Who is more passionate about style v content than Formalists and Animists?

But every tribe has weaknesses to balance their strengths. For all their ability to move an audience, Animists are often the most colloquial and narrow-minded artists. Classicists might know what is great, but in constantly repeating it can easily become boring. While style-conscious Formalists can be so concerned with experimentation that their creations lack heart and soul. And the Iconoclasts, determined to change the world, risk making art consumed by negativity and anger.


From McCloud's formulations, I've realized that many Anglophone Caribbean poets fall into these quadrants:

Classicists: John Figueroa, Louis Simpson, Ralph Thompson
Animists: Jean Binta Breeze, Mutabaruka, Malachi Smith, Linton Kwesi Johnson
Formalists: Derek Walcott, Edward Baugh, Mervyn Morris, Dennis Scott
Iconoclasts: Kamau Brathwaite, Lorna Goodison, Tony McNeill

One of the startling revelations of this typology is that both Walcott and Brathwaite are revolutionaries, but in different ways. Walcott, "the mulatto of style" has shown a preference for art over the raw details of life. And as far as race and ethnicity are concerned, it wasn't that Walcott didn't think that he was black, he simply didn't have a form to express the horrors of the Atlantic Holocaust. It took him over thirty years to realize a form that could encompass his vision. The result was his magnificent work, Omeros.

The classification also helped me to see why many formalists are not viewed as "authentic" Caribbean writers. Caribbean literature and publishing is dominated by the Animists. In the popular mind, dub poetry and the "raw" stories of Caribbean life (content over form; truth over beauty) have become the de facto definitions of Caribbean literature.

Finally, I've also come to appreciate the catholic tastes of Jeremy Poynting and Peepal Tree Press, who have been publishing writers from all four tribes--an achievement that not many publishers, main stream and independent have been able to accomplish.

It will be interesting to see how far down the rabbit hole I will be heading with these new insights. But then, again, what did you expect from a magpie?



April 15, 2013

Donate to Poetry is an Island


"Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter."

Poetry is an Island is a loving portrait of Derek Walcott, who has been telling our story for the past fifty years. The documentary is now in post-production and the director, Ida Does, needs YOUR help to complete the project.

I am supporting by word and deed this remarkable documentary. If you'd like to assist in funding this project, here is the link:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/poetry-is-an-island-derek-walcott

One Love,
Geoffrey


***


The Coalition for the Exoneration of Marcus Garvey is petitioning Senator Bill Nelson, Representative Frederica Wilson, and the Congress of the United States of America for the exoneration of Marcus Garvey:

http://www.causes.com/actions/1722148-urge-congress-to-exonerate-civil-rights-leader-marcus-garvey

We are also petitioning President Barack Obama to exonerate Marcus Garvey:

http://signon.org/sign/exonerate-marcus-garvey?source=c.url&r_by=4631897

Thank you for your support..

January 23, 2013

Happy Birthday, Derek Walcott



And I answer, Anna,
twenty years after,
a man lives half of life,
the second half I memory,

the first half, hesitation
for what should have happened,
but could not, or

what happened with others
when it should not.

~ Another Life

I first heard that fragment from Another Life when I was living in Jamaica. It was on a radio show produced by John Figueroa. Every Sunday afternoon, I would wait by my mother’s transistor radio to listen to the work of a leading Caribbean writer. When I heard Derek Walcott, I was twenty-one and in love. I also wanted to be a writer.

I scribbled down the name of the book and all the information I could gather. The next day, I went to the UWI bookstore and bought my cop of Another Life on January 15, 1979.

After reading Another Life cover to cover several times, Walcott became the model for my verse. Through his poetry, I saw the Caribbean in a new way: its landscape, people, and Light. I also learned that love changes us by awakening us to the details of our lives: “At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.” And despite the terrible price of heartbreak, the bounty from paying attention to the texture of experience, yields the inestimable reward of a life well-lived.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Walcott!

 ***


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Poetry is an Island: Derek Walcott



Teaser for the highly anticipated documentary about Derek Walcott. He even 

reads "Love After Love."



***

We are petitioning President Barack Obama to exonerate the Right Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey. http://signon.org/sign/exonerate-marcus-garvey?source=c.url&r_by=4631897

December 31, 2012

Day 6 of Kwanzaa: Kuumba


"To do always as much as we can in the way that we can in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than when we inherited it."

In my own work this has meant building on the work of elders/ancestors such as Derek Walcott, Kamau Brathwaite, Dennis Scott, Bob Marley, Mervyn Morris,Tony McNeill, Toni Morrison, George Lamming, Michael Anthony, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Rita Dove, James Baldwin, Lorna Goodison, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, Orlando Patterson, and Marcus Mosiah Garvey.

In  a sense, my latest collection of poems, Dub Wise, is an homage to many of these writers. This blog is also a testament to my love and respect for their work. I hope that their work, especially the poets/writers who are not well known in North America, will live on through my poems and this blog.

One Love



***

Blog Disclosure Policy


Geoffrey Philp’s Blog Spot receives a percentage of the purchase price on anything you buy through links to Amazon, Shambala Books, Hay House, or any of the Google ads or Google Custom Search.

***

Disclaimer of Endorsement


The documents posted on this Web site may contain hypertext links or pointers to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. These links and pointers are provided for visitors' convenience. I do not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of any linked information. Further, the inclusion of links or pointers to other Web sites or agencies is not intended to assign importance to those sites and the information contained therein, nor is it intended to endorse, recommend, or favor any views expressed, or commercial products or services offered on these outside sites, or the organizations sponsoring the sites, by trade name, trademark, manufacture, or otherwise.

Reference in this Web site to any specific commercial products, processes, or services, or the use of any trade, firm or corporation name is for the information and convenience of the site's visitors, and does not constitute endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by this blog.

December 30, 2012

Kwanzaa: Nia



You take a chance on Facebook. You reach out to someone you don't know--except that she is a friend of a friend--and she accepts your request. And then, one day you realize one of the reasons why she is a friend. You share a lot more than friendship through others.

Today, Vanessa Byers (Blogging Black Miami) posed an interesting question which went beyond a status update:

Good morning, family! This is the last Sunday in 2012. It is also the fifth day of Kwanzaa. The principle on which we focus is purpose. Each of us has something to contribute toward effecting positive change and uplift in our homes and the community at large. What is your purpose? Are you using it to help others?


Dear Vanessa, 

I am a storyteller. Many of my stories are about the trials of fatherless boys trying to become men and the crises within the Jamaican/Caribbean/ Black community. 

I believe in the power of stories. The more we are able to see ourselves in stories--which is why I write children's books and adult fiction--the better we will be equipped to think through some of the vexing problems we face and perhaps see the beauty in our lives. 

The work of elders/ancestors such as Derek Walcott, Kamau Brathwaite, Dennis Scott, Bob Marley, Tony McNeill, George Lamming, Michael Anthony, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Rita Dove, James Baldwin, Lorna Goodison, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, and Orlando Patterson (and that's only the top shelf of my bookcase) showed me how complex questions of identity could be framed in a way was both intellectually challenging and aesthetically pleasing.

The stories pose the problems and some of the solutions, I believe, are in the teachings of Marcus Mosiah Garvey whose Philosophy and Opinions encompass Kwanzaa and provide a useful framework for the upliftment of Africans at home and abroad . This is why I am working for his exoneration as the first step in our eventual redemption. But we will have to do it for ourselves.

Thank you, Vanessa, for this opportunity. The purpose is unfolding.

One Love,
Geoffrey







Blog Disclosure Policy


Geoffrey Philp’s Blog Spot receives a percentage of the purchase price on anything you buy through links to Amazon, Shambala Books, Hay House, or any of the Google ads or Google Custom Search.

***

Disclaimer of Endorsement


The documents posted on this Web site may contain hypertext links or pointers to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. These links and pointers are provided for visitors' convenience. I do not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of any linked information. Further, the inclusion of links or pointers to other Web sites or agencies is not intended to assign importance to those sites and the information contained therein, nor is it intended to endorse, recommend, or favor any views expressed, or commercial products or services offered on these outside sites, or the organizations sponsoring the sites, by trade name, trademark, manufacture, or otherwise.

Reference in this Web site to any specific commercial products, processes, or services, or the use of any trade, firm or corporation name is for the information and convenience of the site's visitors, and does not constitute endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by this blog.