"PALIMPSEST" by Mervyn Morris

PALIMPSEST

Grandma, much younger

than her age-paper,

is giggling on the floor

with baby Jon

as with his daddy

forty years ago. ‘Age

is just a number,’

as the slogan says.



Grandpa, seeming

buried in a book,

gives thanks for her

endearing gift  

and mumbles Larkin,

‘What will survive of us

is love.’ 

***

MERVYN MORRIS is the author of six books of poetry, including I been there, sort of:  New and Selected Poems (Carcanet Press, 2006).

Lorna Goodison on Claude McKay's Signature Poem

Jamaican poet Claude McKay wrote a poem in 1919 called, "If we must die" in response to race riots across American cities. 

It was a poem of such quality that it became an anthem of resistance everywhere. Twenty years later British Prime Minister Winston Churchill used it as a rallying call to encourage troops in the second world war and to persuade the US to join the war. But Prime Minister and his speech writers never attributed the words to McKay.

BBC's Mark Coles recently discussed the poem with Jamaican poet Lorna Goodison.

Listen to Mark Coles' interview with Lorna Goodison

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Photo by James L. Allen

Video Friday: "The Angel's Message"

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Next week Friday: "Mary" from Twelve Poems and A Story for Christmas

Mark Your Calendar: December 12, 2009

Book Launch: Reception and Lecture: Eroticism, Spirituality and Resistance in Black Women's Writings by Donna Aza Weir-Soley

Come out and bring your friends and family for good Caribbean food and an exciting discussion on the nexus between black female sexuality and spirituality.

Dr Donna Aza Weir-Soley will be reading from her latest book, Eroticism, Spirituality and Resistance in Black Women's Writings, on Saturday, December 12, 2009, at Broward South Regional Library/Broward Community College campus, 3700 Pines Blvd., Pembroke Pines.

Praise for Eroticism, Spirituality, and Resistance in Black Women's Writings.

"In Eroticism, Spirituality, and Resistance in Black Women's Writings, Dr. Weir-Soley successfully undertakes an analysis of how black women writers, beginning with Zora Neale Hurston in her masterpiece Their Eyes Were Watching God, have used overlapping narrative depictions of sexuality and spirituality to recast the denigrated black female body and rewrite an empowered and fully actualized black female subject."

~Candice M. Jenkins, Associate Professor of English, Hunter College, City University of New York

"Weir-Soley speaks with an authority that comes from real knowledge of, investment in, and attention to the details of the African cosmologies and textual complexities she unearths."

~Carine Mardorossian, SUNY-Buffalo

"The most original and significant contributions are the often brilliant readings of Morrison, Adisa, and Danticat. The work is riveting, both methodologically and critically."

~Leslie Sanders, York University

Saturday, December 12, 2009

1:00pm - 4:00pm

Broward South Regional Library,

3700 Pines Blvd., Pembroke Pines

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Black Virgin - Modern Art Exhibition - Paris

For your Christmas pleasure, another view of the Virgin, who has appeared under various guises, most notably at the Chartres Cathedral. We know her in the Caribbean as Erzulie.

Related Post: "Erzulie's Daughter" @ peony moon

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World AIDS Day 2009: "not another aids poem."

Back in the early eighties when “not another aids poem” was written, our family was living in fear. My wife’s cousin, Hernando, was dying and nobody knew why. The doctors tried everything—interferon and other drugs used to treat cancer—but nothing worked. Then, we learned he had been diagnosed with AIDS.

My wife, who was pregnant with our first child, wanted to visit Hernando in Colombia, not only because she loved him, but because he was one of the first in our families who gave us his support. I still remember sitting in a small bar in Bogota, drinking aguardiente, listening to Andean music, and Hernando explaining to me why the preservation of indigenous music—the music of his people—was important.

In the end, my wife and I decided against the visit because we still didn’t know how AIDS was transmitted. Was it airborne? No one had any answers.

Today is World AIDS Day and we now have more information about the disease, but we are no closer to a cure. And it still doesn’t diminish our guilt and the pain that we feel at the loss of a life that was brilliant and filled with cariño.

Rest in Peace, Hernando.

not another aids poem

(for hernando)

when did the tissues,

the invisible barrier between cells,

break and send nuclei,

intent on their own destruction,

alerting an armada of antibodies

in your body's mutiny against itself?

i ask

because it's the only question

that i can understand,

with which i can console myself

while i mutter

a new alphabet of ddc, azt, ddi...

and you become a mottled ghost,

in a gown, transparent as

your skin, a part of the bed,

a network of tubes,

roots i cling to

that connect this life to the next

From:  hurricane center (1998)

Related Posts:

On Ash Wednesday: “not another aids poem.”

“You’re Not My Son Anymore”

Hope: Living and Loving with HIV

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An Early Christmas Present: “Palimpsest”

Mervyn Morris has just given me an early Christmas present that I’m going to share with you.

On Monday, December 7, 2009, I’ll be publishing his poem, “Palimpsest” on this blog.

As a student of Mervyn’s poetry, all the hallmarks of his craft are evident: brevity, dry wit, and multilayered meaning(s). This is also the first time that I have seen him deal with the theme of his mortality and the endurance of art in this way.

John O’Donohue in Divine Beauty mused about writers like Mervyn Morris:  “The presence of the contemplative and the artist in a culture is ultimately an invitation to awaken and engage one’s neglected gifts, to enter more fully into the dream of the eternal that has brought us here to earth.”

Stay tuned and enjoy.

***

MERVYN MORRIS is the author of six books of poetry, including I been there, sort of: New and Selected Poems (Carcanet Press, 2006).

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Book Review: Visionware by Caridad Moro-McCormick

One of the pleasures of attending the Miami Book Fair International 2009 was discovering new books and listening to the authors read—especially when they did it well—from their work. Listening to Caridad Moro-McCormick’s reading from her chapbook, Visionware, was one of those delights because her voice captured the nuances and subtle ironies in the text.

This is not to say that her poems fall apart on the page. It was just so much better to hear her voice when she read a poem like “Analfabeta” about her earliest experiences in sixth grade with a racist teacher and her abuela’s attempt to understand American culture. Throughout the poem, the speaker highlights her abuela’s dignity in a system that seeks to denigrate her individuality and heritage:

You would have though her a dignitary, the day she walked
into my 6th grade classroom, staccato heels, her good black dress
ironed crisp as a dollar, all for a date with Mrs. Dempsey

The teacher, however, does not share the same feelings of respect for her abuela or her culture and she notes how Dempsey “sometimes slipped and called me ‘Spic, how she pounced/when I spoke to my friends in Español.” During the parent-teacher meeting, her abuela “caught most of the/ words Dempsey lobbed her way, but didn’t say a thing,” and  she waits for the right moment, “as the words/too smart for her own good lingered in the air like the bells/ that ruled or days,” to assert herself, “Neber too esmart, mi niña, neber too esmart.”

Moro-McCormick chooses her instances of code-switching wisely and they are deeply poignant when she describes her family’s attempts to assimilate in “White Christmas in El Exilio, 1979”:

where you dreamed of Wise men,
Noche Buenas back home. women serving plate after plate:

lechon, frijoles, yuca, arroz.

Food becomes a trope in the collection which begins with this epigraph in the title poem:

“When you’re in love, everyday is a reason to celebrate. Every meal can be transformed into a special time to toast love, romance and your life together as a couple. Visions-cookware.com.”

Such bliss is short lived as her difficulty with the American utensils becomes a metaphor for her relationship with her husband:

Glass that never did learn
how to burn,
warming too fast

dinner scorched
night after night

Moro-McCormick uses food to define herself and relationship with American culture. Nowhere is this more evident than in “Compulsion: A Chronology” which details the various foods that are staples of her hyphenated identity as a Cuban-American: harina con huevo frito and Whoppers with cheese. Of course, the poem would not be complete without documenting the danger of using food in this way while trying to maintain the American obsession with weight-loss and Barbie-like perfection: “1999, Phentermine": "The pills are small and canary yellow, the closest thing to magic I’ve ever tried.”

Visionware represents a new chapter in the Cuban-American story. Moro-McCormick’s sometimes scathing indictment of discrimination is a reminder of the indignities that many immigrants suffer even when they are navigating holidays such as Labor Day or Veteran’s Day. And this doesn’t include family events such as weddings or quinceñeras. Or traumatic moments described in “Coming Out to Mami.” I am looking forward to Caridad’s next reading and a full length collection of her work.

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New Book: NIgger For Life

Neal Hall, M.D., graduate of Cornell and Harvard, ophthalmologist and poet, has published a critically acclaimed anthology of verse, Nigger For Life, reflecting his painful, later life discovery, that in “unspoken America," race is the one thing on which he is “first” judged, by which he is “first” measured, “first”, against which his life and accomplishments are metered diminished value, dignity and equality. All of which have everything to do with accessing choice, opportunity, power and freedom in America.

Nigger For Life reveals his deep sense of betrayal combined with his fervent passion for life and equality for “all”. His words pierce through in candid, gut wrenching clarity. He bares his intelligence, wit and dreams. His anthology is as confronting as it is illuminating, as disarming as it is thought provoking, as cathartic as it is filling.

Whether an ophthalmologist or poet, Dr. Hall’s reality is clear-cut - in the eyes of “unspoken America”, he is, a Nigger For Life.

Nigger For Life can be reviewed & purchased at: http://www.surgeonpoet.com

Email: info@NiggerForLifeBook.com

Online Interview of Dr. Hall: http://www.caribbeanbookblog.wordpress.com

“…a warrior of the mind … a warrior of the spirit, an activist, a poet.” - Cornel West, Ph.D.

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Happy Thanksgiving 2009

Happy Thanksgiving!

Blessings for You and Yours...

1Heart,

Geoffrey

Thanksgiving Sestina @ Wordle

"Thanksgiving Sestina (for Nadia)" @ Wordle

Here's the original poem: "Thanksgiving Sestina (for Nadia)"

"Thanksgiving Sestina" will be published in my next collection of poems, Dub Wise.

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Geoffrey Philp Wins Daily News Prize For Poetry

The Editorial Board of The Caribbean Writer has awarded Jamaica-born poet and short story writer, Geoffrey Philp,  the Daily News Prize for his poem, “Erzulie’s Daughter.”

A talented writer in many genres, Mr. Philp has also won the Canute Brodhurst Prize for his short story, “Uncle Obadiah and the Alien.” The prize winning poem is included in Philp’s upcoming collection of poems, Dub Wise, which will published in Spring 2010 by Peepal Tree Press.

More @ Jamaicans.com: Geoffrey Philp Wins Daily News Prize For Poetry

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Poor Man's Copyright?

I have a dark secret and I owe one of my students an apology.

It began with two car accidents in consecutive years. Two cars totaled by drunk or careless drivers left me unable to work at the level to which I had become accustomed.

Then, the bills started to pile up.

It would be an understatement to say that I was hard up for money. I was desperate and when I saw an ad in a very reputable magazine for a screenplay, I answered the ad. I'd been tossing around this idea in my head for some time and I bit. I emailed a proposal. The agent followed up and asked for a treatment.

I sent him this synopsis, but just to be sure, I mailed myself a copy of the treatment and followed the advice that one of my teachers had given me: "Use Poor Man's Copyright."


It  has been one of the biggest mistakes of my writing career.

***

Synopsis of The Blackheart Man

Opening Scene: Westmoreland, Jamaica.

The camera moves lowly over rows and rows of cane fields under a gorgeous Jamaican full moon. It’s as if the camera is bending the heads of the cane stalks, but there’s no sound—just the movement of the camera over the canes. A light rain begins to fall. The pace quickens over a hill to a Great House and toward a beach and circles back to cane fields.

Spling! The sound that machetes make when cutting cane.

The sound intensifies and the camera moves faster and after over the cane fields and suddenly we see a couple obviously in love racing towards a fence that has a sign “Keep Out! On Pane of Deth!” They ignore the sign and almost as if seeking shelter from the rain they race towards the dilapidated Great House.

Spling!

We see the machete glinting in the moonlight. As they run, the woman begins to unwrap the skirt she’s been wearing. Obviously they are going to make love. We assume she’s going to lie down on the skirt. They enter the Great House cautiously, and then, race towards the center hall where they start to make out and then, to have sex.

Spling!

The rain begins to fall harder and they are getting wet while they are making love, but they don’t seem to mind—the sex is too good. They are both giggling and laughing and we have a close-up of the man’s face. He is loving this.

Spling!

In split second, the camera pans the woman’s’ face that goes from her own pleasure and giving pleasure to blood all over her face. The man has been decapitated. There is a thud on the floor. We never see the head. All we see is the look of horror on her face as the body falls on top of her and twitches. She screams. And screams. She picks up what she can and races out of the Great House.

The rain is falling harder. She is racing towards the beach. The sound of a heartbeat. We see the machete again.

Spling!

A hand reaches out to touch her, but she fights it off a runs even faster away from the hand. Close-up of her as she apparently reaches towards her legs as if she had been cut down.

Spling!

She falls and looks up at the camera, almost in recognition, but not quite. Scream…

Spling!

Bunny Wailer’s song “Blackheart Man” begins.

Trevor Matthews, the protagonist
Janice Williams, the love interest
Uncle Wallace, the antagonist
Henry DaCosta, weed smoker and comic relief
Norman Higgins, sidekick and betrayer
Beeline, wise old Rasta man
Blackheart Man, a dreadlocked force of nature
The Mistress, comic relief

Trevor Matthews, who works as a manger at a hotel in Miami, has returned to Jamaica to take over and run Hog Heaven Hotel that has been placed in trust to his Uncle Wallace until he is twenty-nine years old. Trevor is educated, has a degree in hospitality management, and knows the hotel business in a bookish way. He has never been tested in Jamaica where he is a bit of a fish out of water. He has invited his friends Henry (weed smoker and comic relief) and Norman (secretly a coward) with him so that they can help him run the hotel. They have been friends with him in Miami and he figures they will be with him through whatever problems he comes up against in Jamaica.

On the night before Trevor returns from Miami, the murder has already occurred. Uncle Wallace (ex-cop) covers up the murder of the Jamaican couple with little or no fanfare. Uncle Wallace thinks he is going to buy out Paul's portion of the business.

When Trevor returns to Jamaica, he tells Uncle Wallace that he intends to take over Hog Heaven. This upsets all of Uncle Sam's plans. A murder of a tourist occurs and Uncle Wallace doesn't cover it up. In fact, he makes it a media event. He wants to discourage Trevor from buying the hotel. He wants the hotel for himself and his very expensive mistress.

Enter Janice Williams, Paul's' old girl friend. She works for the Tourist Board of Jamaica and is there to help Trevor so he won’t lose any more tourist business. Trevor still loves her and she still loves him. Trevor wants to prove that he is no longer a dilettante( “You can always run back to Miami and leave us the way you’ve always run away from everything” she says to him) and she wants to prove that she's no longer Daddy's little girl (“Did Daddy get you this job, too?” Trevor asks her the first time they meet: “He’s dead” she counters, “but I guess you were too busy in Miami to follow what’s been happening here in Jamaica.”

Paul also meets up with the Rasta man Beeline who gives him the background story of the Blackheart man who has been stirred by the boundary transgression of the Jamaican couple and the tourists and Uncle Wallace’s plan to extend the hotel to the land that was owned by the Blackheart man. A murder of a cook who worked at the hotel when Trevor’s father was alive has occurred before when Trevor’s’ father tired to expand the hotel. But once Trevor’s father restored the fence, nothing happened again.

Another murder attempt occurs and Trevor must act to solve the mystery. If not, another tourist will never step foot in the hotel. Who is the Blackheart man? Beeline gives more information. Uncle Wallace sees this as the perfect opportunity to kill Paul. He hires a hit man to do the job ala the Blackheart man. The Blackheart Man kills the assassin.

Trevor tries to rebuild the fence, but Beeline tells him it is futile now. The Blackheart man wants blood. The fence is still repaired. The next day they find it broken down again.

Fear takes over the hotel. Everyone is fleeing, checking out. Going to other hotels and islands.

Trevor is betrayed by his friend Norman who decides to go back to Miami, “I don’t want to die, man.” Uncle Wallace has bought off Norman. Henry will stay for the weed that Beeline supplies

Together Trevor, Janice, Beeline and Henry must join to kill the Blackheart man.

The Blackheart man kills Norman who is one the way to the airport.

The Blackheart man also kills Uncle Wallace. His expensive mistress gets away without her weave. Trevor is next. They all join forces and they kill the Blackheart man.

Trevor is reunited with Janice. The hotel opens under new management with Trevor and Janice about to get married.

***

I never heard from the agent again.

Then, a few years ago, my son and I were walking through Blockbuster and we saw this movie, XYZ, that was set on a Caribbean island, so we decided to rent it.

As we settled back in our seats, a sickening feeling overcame me. This was my movie. A few changes had been made, but it was my movie. I'd been ripped off.

I called all my friends and then we contacted a lawyer, who after reviewing the case told me that because we couldn't prove a “material connection” between he agent and the production company, we couldn't bring a law suit. Plus, he added with the costs of expert witnesses, etc, the costs made it impossible to win.

I asked him about "Poor Man's Copyright."

After he finished laughing, he basically informed me about what is now found in Wikipedia: "There is no provision in copyright law regarding any such type of protection. Poor man's copyright is therefore not a substitute for registration. According to section 408 of the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, registration of a work with the Copyright Office is not a prerequisite for copyright protection."

Dejected, I put away the information and thought I'd gotten over it until a few weekends ago when a popular cable station had a movie marathon with the movie.

I was steaming mad, but there was nothing that I could do about it.

And then I remembered the advice that I'd given one of my students about copyrighting his poems. I told him it was probably a bad idea to copyright every one of his poems because of the cost and the chance of his work being stolen was infinitesimal.

I'm wondering now if I gave him the right advice. I don't think I did. So, my student, if you are reading this, I'm sorry that I gave you bad advice and I hope you have not lost any work to unscrupulous agents or producers.

For in this Internet age when everything on the web can be scraped, copied, and mashed, unless you're willing to let go of the work, then you'd better apply for copyright: U.S. Copyright Office.

It may just save you from the rage that I am still feeling right now.

***

Words from flickr

Created by kastner

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