The Journal of West Indian Literature: Now Online!

The Journal of West Indian Literature has been published twice-yearly by the Departments of Literatures in English of the University of the West Indies since October 1986. Edited by full-time academics, the journal originated at the same time as the first annual conference on West Indian Literature, the brainchild of Edward Baugh, Mervyn Morris and Mark McWatt. It reflects the continued commitment to provide a regional and extra-regional forum for the dissemination and discussion of anglophone Caribbean literary and artistic culture. Initially featuring contributions from scholars in the West Indies, it has become an internationally recognized peer-reviewed academic journal.

JWIL’s editorial board welcomes articles in English that are the result of scholarly research in literary textuality (fiction, prose, drama, film, theory and criticism) of the English-speaking Caribbean; comparative assessments of non-Anglophone Caribbean texts are also accepted, provided that translations into English of the relevant parts of such texts are incorporated into the submission. JWIL will also publish book reviews.

In 2011, founding editor Mark McWatt celebrated JWIL’s twenty-fifth year of publication as a regional, UWI-led Caribbeanist project invested in highlighting and critically examining the prolific literary production of the Anglophone Caribbean. McWatt observed at the time that there was talk about the journal, which printed its first volume in 1986, “becoming exclusively an on-line publication” in the interests of international recognition and access. Of course, things moved slowly when the editors were all full-time academics juggling multiple responsibilities across the three campuses of the University of the West Indies, but only four years afterward, JWIL has indeed transitioned to an online platform. http://www.jwilonline.org/ is the journal’s first website, and it will be the platform for the first online volume: the double-issue Vol. 23 Nos. 1&2, which will appear in late December 2015, and will be open access for a limited time.

Special 10th Anniversary Issue of Anthurium: "Intellectual Formations: Locating a Caribbean Critical Tradition."

Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal | University of Miami: 

Anthurium, a peer reviewed Caribbean Studies Journal, publishes original works and critical studies of Caribbean literature, theater, film, art, and culture by writers and scholars worldwide exclusively in electronic form. Founded by Sandra Pouchet Paquet in 2003, Anthurium promotes a lively exchange among writers and scholars in the arts, humanities, and social sciences and other disciplines who hold diverse perspectives on Caribbean literature and culture and offers a mixture of fiction, poetry, plays, critical essays, cultural studies, interviews, and visual art. Book reviews and bibliographies, special thematic issues and original art and photography are some of the features of this international journal of Caribbean arts and letters.

Current Issue: Volume 10, Issue 2 (2013) "Intellectual Formations: Locating a Caribbean Critical Tradition."

http://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/anthurium/

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Miranda - N°7 - Geoffrey Philp, Dub Wise: Review

Miranda - N°7 - Geoffrey Philp, Dub Wise: 

"With this new collection, it is quite clear that Philp embodies the continuation of a Caribbean tradition of criticism and creative writing. Indeed, his style is deeply reminiscent of Derek Walcott’s poetry, densely metaphorical in "Beyond Mountain View". But it also bears the influence of Kamau Brathwaite’s more pared-down couplets in "Limbo: Version". His "Ode to Brother Joe: Version" updates a poem by the late Tony McNeill, "Ode to Brother Joe", about a Rastafarian elder lost in Babylon. "Warner Woman: Version" is dedicated to Edward Baugh and is, of course, a take on his famous "Warner Woman". The word "version" in these titles testifies to the influence of reggae culture on Philp. This word refers to an instrumental or a dub version of a well-known reggae tune."

To read more, please follow this link: http://www.miranda-ejournal.fr/sdx2/miranda/article.xsp?numero=7&id_article=Article_17-335




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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.


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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.

Bocas in Miami!

The body of water Miami faces is the Atlantic Ocean, but — 180 miles from Nassau, 220 miles from Havana — there’s no doubt it’s also a Caribbean city. And for a few days in mid-October, Miami will also be a major hub for Caribbean literary scholarship, as the University of Miami hosts the 31st annual West Indian Literature Conference, with the theme “Imagined Nations, 50 Years Later: Reflections on Independence and Federation in the Caribbean.”

And the NGC Bocas Lit Fest will be part of the mix! We’ll be hosting a reading by five remarkable writers of different generations, as part of the closing night events of the WILC — and everyone is invited. The details:

Nations and Imaginations: An Evening with the NGC Bocas Lit Fest in Miami

Featuring 2012 OCM Bocas Prize winner Earl Lovelace, 2013 OCM Bocas Prize chair Olive Senior, Edwidge Danticat, Edward Baugh, and Lisa Allen-Agostini.

Saturday 13 October, 8 pm

Books and Books, 

265 Aragon Avenue, Coral Gables

The event is free and open to the public. Bocas fans in Miami, hope to see you there!

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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.

21 Days/ 21 Poems: Childhood

Instamatic

And here's Catherine

at sixteen months

barely above ground

and yet

so sky-inclined

Daddy, hustling, must yield

to her insistent ‘Bird! Bird!’

or ‘Plane!’or

‘Moon!’ her innocence

sanctifies

object and word.

She grows fast

like us to hustle time

to lose

her skywardness.

"Instamatic," by Edward Baugh. A Tale From the Rainforest, Sandberry Press, Kingston, Jamaica, 1988.


When I first read “Instamatic” in The Daily Gleaner (I had a clipped copy until a few years ago), I was awed by the simplicity and power of the lyric. In a few lines, Baugh captures the innocence of the child, “Daddy, hustling, must yield/ to her insistent ‘Bird! Bird!’/ or ‘Plane!’ and the love of the father, “her innocence/sanctifies/ object and word.” There is also a careful balancing of the words “hustle,” “sky-inclined,” and “skywardness” and the playful use of long and short vowels to contrast the point of view of the father and the child.

“Instamatic” was one of those poems that I kept in memory during the formative years of my children, and it made me appreciate even more their sheer delight and wonder of the world.

Photo: Book Industry Association of Jamaica

Edward Alston Cecil Baugh (born 10 January 1936) is a Jamaican poet and scholar, recognised as an authority on the work of Derek Walcott.

He was born in Port Antonio, Jamaica, and began writing poetry at Titchfield High School. He won a scholarship to study English literature at the University College of the West Indies in Mona, Jamaica, and later did his postgraduate studies at Queen's University in Ontario and the University of Manchester, where he earned a Ph.D. in 1964. He taught at the Cave Hill campus of the University of the West Indies from 1965 to 1967, then at the university's Mona campus from 1968 to 2001, eventually being appointed professor of English in 1978 and public orator in 1985.

Source: Wikipedia

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Related articles

• Book Review: "Dub Wise: A Gift from Maker to Reader" by Mary Hanna (geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com)
• The 2011 Bocas Lit Fest Announces Program (repeatingislands.com)
• The CRB in 2010: your favourites (caribbeanreviewofbooks.com)

The 10th anniversary of Calabash: Video

Calabash 2010 will be May 28-30th at Jakes in Treasure Beach. Here is the link to the first Calabash video on YouTube. The video is constructed around an amazing poem written by the incomparable Dr. Kwame Dawes in celebration of year 10.

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Small Axe Literary Competition 2010

The Small Axe Project has initiated an annual literary competition to encourage the production and publication of Caribbean fiction and poetry. The Small Axe Literary Competition will focus on poetry and short stories from emerging writers whose work centers on regional and diasporic Caribbean themes and concerns. This competition is part of the Small Axe Project’s ongoing commitment to Caribbean cultural production and our mission to provide a forum for innovative critical and creative explorations of Caribbean reality. With this competition, we hope to encourage and support the region’s rich literary heritage, in the tradition of precursors such as Bim, Kyk-over-al, Focus and Savacou.

The competition will consist of two categories: poetry and short fiction. Two winners will be chosen from each category. Winners will be chosen by a distinguished panel of judges. For the 2009 competition the judges for poetry were Edward Baugh, Lorna Goodison, and Mark McWatt; and for short fiction, Garfield Ellis, Geoffrey Philp, and Merle Collins.

First Prize: $750     Second Prize: $500

Winners of the 2010 competition will be published in Small Axe 35 (July 2011).

Submission deadline: April 30, 2010

Writers wishing to compete for a Small Axe Literary Prize must submit the following to litcomp@smallaxe.net:

    * A double-spaced Word document containing: an original, unpublished short story (maximum 7,000 words), or an original selection of poetry (maximum ten poems, not exceeding ten manuscript pages). Submissions must be blind.

    * A separate document with a one-page biography, including previously published works and full contact information (name, email address, mailing address and phone)

More information available at: http://www.smallaxe.net/literary_competition.php

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