Right. So we're two weeks into August, I've put nothing up since the end of July, and I've folks to reply to that I've left hanging! Wai-oh! The thing is I've been working on a big project and whenever I do that, everything else goes by the board. This is not a good thing. I can multi-task, I tell myself.
To no avail.
So, to make up for my delinquency and buy myself a little more time, here are three rhymes for skipping rope. Summer is skipping rope time, so maybe you know some young people who’ll have fun with them. All three are riffs on rhymes we skipped to as children.
(For those who don't know, the rope went faster as the condiments in "Salt, Vinegar..." got hotter.)
So, beg you hol dat fe now! With luck (plenty luck) more on the weekend.
Room for rent
Room for rent
Apply within.
When you come out
I come in.
Look how bad
you leave this place!
Trash everywhere!
It is a disgrace!
Room for rent
Apply within.
When I come out
You come in.
I don’t leave no dirt!
Not even a trace...
The floor so shine
You can see your face.
So if you want
To rent my room
You best arrive
With your mop and broom.
© Pamela Mordecai 2009
Hurricane housing
I need to find
a room to rent.
I tired to live
in this hurricane tent.
I living here since
the last breeze-blow
and I long to leave
but the government slow.
If things keep on
at this drag-foot pace
I going to die
in this very same place!
So I need to find
a room to rent.
before I drop down dead
in this leaky tent.
© Pamela Mordecai 2009
Salt Vinegar Mustard Pepper
Salt vinegar
mustard pepper
spin the rope
for this high stepper.
Pepper mustard
vinegar salt
slow him down
till him come to a halt.
© Pamela Mordecai 2009
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Nervous (in one case) notes
Okay, following my own advice about keeping the blog going, voilà!
Concerning poetry, a couple of websites to check out, if you haven’t before.
http://international.poetryinternationalweb.org
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/index.html
I saw on facebook that “Rock Steady: the Roots of Reggae” has been held over at the Carlton Cinema. It was on yesterday but I don’t know if it’s on today. Klive Walker, author of Dubwise: Reasoning from the reggae underground, published by Insomniac Press http://www.insomniacpress.com/title.php?id=1-894663-96-9 recently sent me a review of the film. Perhaps he’ll agree to let me publish it or perhaps I'll be able to make the film myself.
Go to the website, anyway. That alone is worth the visit.
http://www.rocksteadyrootsofreggae.com/rocksteady.html
Finally (the scariest for the last), on a website advertising itself as “Christian Assemblies International,” I commenced reading an article called “Multiculturalism – The Canadian Experience”. Nazi, Proto-Nazi and race hate websites I know about, but this took me aback. Have a read for yourself. These people speak about "the White World!" No! They do not mean the Arctic and Antarctic! No! Their tongues are not in their cheeks! I really think Jesus had better come soon, and set things straight himself. For one thing, they may stunned to learn that he's a Jew. Meanwhile, I’m thinking of saying that I’m a follower of Jesus in future. No wonder so many people despise “Christians”! Here's the website. Keep your righteous cool! Selah!
http://www.cai.org/bible-studies/multiculturalism-canadian-experience
Perhaps a note about the garbage strike tomorrow, when we hope and pray it will truly have come to an end.
Concerning poetry, a couple of websites to check out, if you haven’t before.
http://international.poetryinternationalweb.org
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/index.html
I saw on facebook that “Rock Steady: the Roots of Reggae” has been held over at the Carlton Cinema. It was on yesterday but I don’t know if it’s on today. Klive Walker, author of Dubwise: Reasoning from the reggae underground, published by Insomniac Press http://www.insomniacpress.com/title.php?id=1-894663-96-9 recently sent me a review of the film. Perhaps he’ll agree to let me publish it or perhaps I'll be able to make the film myself.
Go to the website, anyway. That alone is worth the visit.
http://www.rocksteadyrootsofreggae.com/rocksteady.html
Finally (the scariest for the last), on a website advertising itself as “Christian Assemblies International,” I commenced reading an article called “Multiculturalism – The Canadian Experience”. Nazi, Proto-Nazi and race hate websites I know about, but this took me aback. Have a read for yourself. These people speak about "the White World!" No! They do not mean the Arctic and Antarctic! No! Their tongues are not in their cheeks! I really think Jesus had better come soon, and set things straight himself. For one thing, they may stunned to learn that he's a Jew. Meanwhile, I’m thinking of saying that I’m a follower of Jesus in future. No wonder so many people despise “Christians”! Here's the website. Keep your righteous cool! Selah!
http://www.cai.org/bible-studies/multiculturalism-canadian-experience
Perhaps a note about the garbage strike tomorrow, when we hope and pray it will truly have come to an end.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
More on the Arrest of Professor Gates
There’s been lots of comment about Professor Gates's arrest in the media, which, as far as I'm concerned, is all to the good. I can't think why anyone would want to dampen down the discussion. It's fine to have a black man in the White House, an important positive development, as I've said, but that doesn't change the facts, one, for instance, being that black and Hispanic men make up almost 60% of the jail population in the USA. And it's not because they are born wicked. I’m not suggesting that some of them don't deserve to be there (though some of them don't), but that disproportionate presence is one symptom of a lot that's amiss where matters of race in North America are concerned, especially matters that impact black men.
And not talking about it, or ratcheting down the discussion isn't going to make that set of problems go away, by any means.
It's interesting to note, in the comments that have been made on many of the articles online, that ordinary folks repeatedly say that they need to be deferential with the police, a deference that clearly arises out of fear. I learned too that a great many police officers “demand respect”, especially when they are in uniform. More on that in a bit.
A couple points have emerged to fill out our picture of the incident. Seems Sergeant James Crowley, the arresting officer, felt threatened. He mentioned being aware of having to protect himself because his wife and children needed him. I can absolutely appreciate that. But it's fair to point out that Professor Gates is an older man who uses a cane, and that he had just come back, ill, from a long and tiring trip. So, a strong, armed young man was facing an older, sick man, who uses a cane and has done for a long time. Hmmmn. There’s a picture online of Professor Gates in hand cuffs. Worth a thousand words!
Where respect is concerned, I have two observations.
I was a teacher in another life. It's my experience that respect is not to be demanded, it's to be deserved. It was my business to earn my students' respect: by my own demeanour, by how I treated them, by my insisting that the circumstance in which we all learned reflected the fact of this mutual respect – a clean classroom, no rowdy behaviour, everyone having a chance to speak and be heard, etc., etc. The person with the authority is the one who sets the tone, calibrates the nature of the interactions.
True, my life may not have been on the line (not at that time, anyway), but a cop is like a soldier, and threats to life and limb are part of the territory. It's a hazardous job, and those who take it on know that up front. That defusing of bad situations is a cop skill as much as a teacher skill. (Malcolm Gladwell has written insightfully about this.)
Secondly, those who are likely to confront the police with “disrespectful” behaviour are often the people who most need their protection. They are people who are old folks with dementia; they are people who are mentally or physically ill, or temporarily off-balance, or inebriated, or high on dope. (Yes, drunks and dope heads are citizens too, and deserve protection.) Nor are the police without recourse. They have Mylar vests, guns, billies, tasers – the latter having, in too many cases, turned out to be lethal weapons in their hands.
Sadly, the instances of police shootings of innocent people are far too many. FSJL mentions a truly alarming one in his comments on our last post. Here in Toronto, the Asian man who was mentally ill and who was shot to death on a trolley downtown, his weapon a small hammer in his hand, comes to mind. So also does the case of the African-Canadian man, clad in colourful regalia and brandishing a wooden sword, who was shot to death by police on St Clair Avenue. Both were non compos mentis; neither posed a credible threat to anyone, least of all the police, at any time. And, more recently, there is the case of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski tasered to death just 24 seconds after being confronted by police in Vancouver International Airport.
It’s not that I’m without sympathy for the job that policemen do. As a young man, my father worked in Tower Street Prison. But there’s a reason that policemen carry guns, and we trust them to do so. And that’s precisely why it’s fair to expect them to be the ones who always keep their cool: if they lose it, the results may be irreversible. Nor does respect inhere in “Yes, officer. No, officer.” That respect is transient and superficial. The real respect is a community’s continuing trust in and support of their law officers.
Unless of course we are to degenerate into a Wild West in which we are all armed and dangerous…
And not talking about it, or ratcheting down the discussion isn't going to make that set of problems go away, by any means.
It's interesting to note, in the comments that have been made on many of the articles online, that ordinary folks repeatedly say that they need to be deferential with the police, a deference that clearly arises out of fear. I learned too that a great many police officers “demand respect”, especially when they are in uniform. More on that in a bit.
A couple points have emerged to fill out our picture of the incident. Seems Sergeant James Crowley, the arresting officer, felt threatened. He mentioned being aware of having to protect himself because his wife and children needed him. I can absolutely appreciate that. But it's fair to point out that Professor Gates is an older man who uses a cane, and that he had just come back, ill, from a long and tiring trip. So, a strong, armed young man was facing an older, sick man, who uses a cane and has done for a long time. Hmmmn. There’s a picture online of Professor Gates in hand cuffs. Worth a thousand words!
Where respect is concerned, I have two observations.
I was a teacher in another life. It's my experience that respect is not to be demanded, it's to be deserved. It was my business to earn my students' respect: by my own demeanour, by how I treated them, by my insisting that the circumstance in which we all learned reflected the fact of this mutual respect – a clean classroom, no rowdy behaviour, everyone having a chance to speak and be heard, etc., etc. The person with the authority is the one who sets the tone, calibrates the nature of the interactions.
True, my life may not have been on the line (not at that time, anyway), but a cop is like a soldier, and threats to life and limb are part of the territory. It's a hazardous job, and those who take it on know that up front. That defusing of bad situations is a cop skill as much as a teacher skill. (Malcolm Gladwell has written insightfully about this.)
Secondly, those who are likely to confront the police with “disrespectful” behaviour are often the people who most need their protection. They are people who are old folks with dementia; they are people who are mentally or physically ill, or temporarily off-balance, or inebriated, or high on dope. (Yes, drunks and dope heads are citizens too, and deserve protection.) Nor are the police without recourse. They have Mylar vests, guns, billies, tasers – the latter having, in too many cases, turned out to be lethal weapons in their hands.
Sadly, the instances of police shootings of innocent people are far too many. FSJL mentions a truly alarming one in his comments on our last post. Here in Toronto, the Asian man who was mentally ill and who was shot to death on a trolley downtown, his weapon a small hammer in his hand, comes to mind. So also does the case of the African-Canadian man, clad in colourful regalia and brandishing a wooden sword, who was shot to death by police on St Clair Avenue. Both were non compos mentis; neither posed a credible threat to anyone, least of all the police, at any time. And, more recently, there is the case of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski tasered to death just 24 seconds after being confronted by police in Vancouver International Airport.
It’s not that I’m without sympathy for the job that policemen do. As a young man, my father worked in Tower Street Prison. But there’s a reason that policemen carry guns, and we trust them to do so. And that’s precisely why it’s fair to expect them to be the ones who always keep their cool: if they lose it, the results may be irreversible. Nor does respect inhere in “Yes, officer. No, officer.” That respect is transient and superficial. The real respect is a community’s continuing trust in and support of their law officers.
Unless of course we are to degenerate into a Wild West in which we are all armed and dangerous…
Friday, July 24, 2009
Henry Louis Gates Jr and Nightmare America
You’ve got to be grateful for the young Americans in Grant Park. You’ve got to believe in their upturned, eager faces. You’ve got to engage with their hope. Why? Because they are hitching their wagon to a faltering star – and I’m not talking about Barack Obama. It’s a star of longing that an America will emerge at some time in the not too distant future in which presidents, police, politicians, monarchs of the marketplace, all those who wield power will behave with basic human decency. I don’t say ‘common’ for it ain’t common no more, as the matter I am about to raise will amply demonstrate.
Michael Mechanic, a senior editor at MOTHER JONES magazine, offers this comment on the arrest of black American intellectual, Henry Louis Gates Jr, in an opinion piece carried in today’s GLOBE AND MAIL entitled “Why you never, ever get righteous on a street cop.”
You don't talk back to the police. You don't question them. And you certainly don't call them racist, even if you think they're profiling you. (And they most likely are.)
Because you will lose. It doesn't matter whether you're a prominent black Harvard prof, a white kid on his way to attend graduate school or a Hispanic high-school dropout.
True it is that Mr Mechanic bases his opinion on his own encounters with police, white though he is. What alarms me is that he should feel free to offer such an opinion, and that the GLOBE AND MAIL should elect to retail it. That, in many respects, is more shocking than the incident of Professor Gates’s arrest itself.
Let’s face it. We live – have been living for quite a while – in an age in which people with guns and knives and other lethal instruments can wreak havoc on anyone at any time they choose. We are very equal in that respect – or lack of it. John Kennedy and Emmett Till, equally dead: one was a filthy rich white President of the most powerful country on earth, the other a poor black teenager, a citizen of the same country. They were both mortal and somebody decided to let them know it.
But when anything of this kind happens we are normally outraged. We mourn the deaths, not only of the murdered but of the values, courtesies and right behaviours that would have secured the lives of the victims, had they been observed. We affirm the most basic value: that human life is precious, that each human person is unique and irreplaceable and that every one of us deserves to be treated by every other one of us in a way that demonstrates that understanding.
The police in a country that purports to be democratic aren’t supposed to be arbitrary wielders of power. They aren’t a militia. They aren’t armed thugs. They aren’t guerillas waging war in support of any cause they privately support. They are, like the Pope, servants of the servants of God, in other words, us common folks. Paid with our tax dollars, they are meant to work for us and protect us. We are not supposed to be deadly afraid of tangling with them on account of what they might choose to do to us.
That is what is chilling about Mr Mechanic’s opinion piece. It tells me – I’d be very happy to be reading him wrong – that I need to adopt just such a cowering attitude when I encounter a cop, because otherwise I “am going to lose”. I infer that what I will lose is my intactness of person or my freedom or my life, or in the worst case, all of the above. This is the wisdom, gleaned from his own experience, that he offers his readers. This is the wisdom that he chastens Professor Gates for not having. (Poor soul: the Professor thought he was a free man in a free state.)
Mr Mechanic doesn’t say this is a terrible state of affairs. He doesn’t rant and rave about things gone awry. He does not complain that it’s a sign that the country is going to hell in a hand-basket when ostensible keepers of the peace can’t find a smooth way through an incident like this one and arrive at a win-win conclusion. I put it this way because, never mind how Professor Gates may or may not have behaved, I agree with Mr Mechanic in one regard: in a situation like this one, it is the police who have the upper hand. I conclude from this that the greater onus is therefore on them.
It does not seem to upset Mr Mechanic that, as he offers us counsel, he characterizes citizen and police as combatants, fighting on opposing sides.
All of which suggests to me that he might as well have been describing any old totalitarian country, any old banana republic, any old Cold War Communist state.
Let Mr Mechanic not therefore, in future, speak of the United States of America in the same breath as he speaks of democracy, or rights, or freedoms, or the pursuit of any kind of happiness. Let him always keep his feet firmly on the ground, and tell it like it is. This is an America in which the citizen who has his wits about him had better be scared of the very people who are supposed to protect him. This is bizarre, ghoulish, monstrous, Nightmare America.
Michael Mechanic, a senior editor at MOTHER JONES magazine, offers this comment on the arrest of black American intellectual, Henry Louis Gates Jr, in an opinion piece carried in today’s GLOBE AND MAIL entitled “Why you never, ever get righteous on a street cop.”
You don't talk back to the police. You don't question them. And you certainly don't call them racist, even if you think they're profiling you. (And they most likely are.)
Because you will lose. It doesn't matter whether you're a prominent black Harvard prof, a white kid on his way to attend graduate school or a Hispanic high-school dropout.
True it is that Mr Mechanic bases his opinion on his own encounters with police, white though he is. What alarms me is that he should feel free to offer such an opinion, and that the GLOBE AND MAIL should elect to retail it. That, in many respects, is more shocking than the incident of Professor Gates’s arrest itself.
Let’s face it. We live – have been living for quite a while – in an age in which people with guns and knives and other lethal instruments can wreak havoc on anyone at any time they choose. We are very equal in that respect – or lack of it. John Kennedy and Emmett Till, equally dead: one was a filthy rich white President of the most powerful country on earth, the other a poor black teenager, a citizen of the same country. They were both mortal and somebody decided to let them know it.
But when anything of this kind happens we are normally outraged. We mourn the deaths, not only of the murdered but of the values, courtesies and right behaviours that would have secured the lives of the victims, had they been observed. We affirm the most basic value: that human life is precious, that each human person is unique and irreplaceable and that every one of us deserves to be treated by every other one of us in a way that demonstrates that understanding.
The police in a country that purports to be democratic aren’t supposed to be arbitrary wielders of power. They aren’t a militia. They aren’t armed thugs. They aren’t guerillas waging war in support of any cause they privately support. They are, like the Pope, servants of the servants of God, in other words, us common folks. Paid with our tax dollars, they are meant to work for us and protect us. We are not supposed to be deadly afraid of tangling with them on account of what they might choose to do to us.
That is what is chilling about Mr Mechanic’s opinion piece. It tells me – I’d be very happy to be reading him wrong – that I need to adopt just such a cowering attitude when I encounter a cop, because otherwise I “am going to lose”. I infer that what I will lose is my intactness of person or my freedom or my life, or in the worst case, all of the above. This is the wisdom, gleaned from his own experience, that he offers his readers. This is the wisdom that he chastens Professor Gates for not having. (Poor soul: the Professor thought he was a free man in a free state.)
Mr Mechanic doesn’t say this is a terrible state of affairs. He doesn’t rant and rave about things gone awry. He does not complain that it’s a sign that the country is going to hell in a hand-basket when ostensible keepers of the peace can’t find a smooth way through an incident like this one and arrive at a win-win conclusion. I put it this way because, never mind how Professor Gates may or may not have behaved, I agree with Mr Mechanic in one regard: in a situation like this one, it is the police who have the upper hand. I conclude from this that the greater onus is therefore on them.
It does not seem to upset Mr Mechanic that, as he offers us counsel, he characterizes citizen and police as combatants, fighting on opposing sides.
All of which suggests to me that he might as well have been describing any old totalitarian country, any old banana republic, any old Cold War Communist state.
Let Mr Mechanic not therefore, in future, speak of the United States of America in the same breath as he speaks of democracy, or rights, or freedoms, or the pursuit of any kind of happiness. Let him always keep his feet firmly on the ground, and tell it like it is. This is an America in which the citizen who has his wits about him had better be scared of the very people who are supposed to protect him. This is bizarre, ghoulish, monstrous, Nightmare America.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
"Everybody get flat – a dub"
In 2005, THE TRUE BLUE OF ISLANDS, a book dedicated to my brother Richard, murdered in Jamaica in 2004, appeared. Not long ago (on April 28), I posted the title poem, which is an account of his death. Today's post is a dub, another version of that death, to remember him because he recently had a birthday. The book of poems, never mind its subject (violence in its several manifestations) witnesses to his life. It celebrates an ordinary man. It mourns, not him alone, but all those who die brutally, as well as all those who suffer abuse in the course of their lives.
We who are left, pursuing our ambitions, hopping on planes and boats and trains about our business, have failed miserably to guard our kin – our relatives by blood, by six degrees of separation, by simple living on this planet together. I beat my breast and confess that failure. Had I invested more, and earlier, had a larger heart, been more generous with my time, more earnest in my prayers, more ready to share what I have, he might not be dead, and the person who killed him might not have been impelled to murder. The same applies to all of us, with respect to all those who have died arbitrarily and to all those who have done murder.
Mea maxima culpa.
So here is "Everybody Get Flat."
Happy Belated Birthday and Rest in Peace, my brother.
Everybody get flat – a dub
Where is the poem
that explains
what happens
to you when
they shoot your brother
and you hear
that his brains
spilled over the seat
to the back of the car
and you have to tell folks,
“No it wasn’t a war.
No, he wasn’t
caught in crossfire
No it wasn’t a fight.
Yes it happened at night
but no, not in town
out in the country
not a God soul around.
No, he didn’t launder money.
No he wasn’t into dope.
Just a man with a plan
and a fervent hope.
What was the motive?
The police can’t find
not a rhyme not a reason
why they kill the man.
Just a random execution –
So, no, we don’t have a clue
why he might have been killed.
Yes I guess you could say
God must have willed
it. What? God willed it?
No the priest said.
God don’t will
no slaughtered dead.
God allow us our own way.
So we turn into a place
with a theme song that say
“Everybody get flat –
dog coming through!”
And dog mean gun
and is all in fun
don’t mind people
have to run
down in the ghetto
every God-sent day
from the teeth of the dog.
But I guess we have a way
to grit our teeth
and carry on through.
Till a bullet come
and you pray
it’s not for you.
© Copyright Pamela Mordecai, author of THE TRUE BLUE OF ISLANDS and PINK ICING: STORIES.
All rights reserved.
No part of this blog may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations.
We who are left, pursuing our ambitions, hopping on planes and boats and trains about our business, have failed miserably to guard our kin – our relatives by blood, by six degrees of separation, by simple living on this planet together. I beat my breast and confess that failure. Had I invested more, and earlier, had a larger heart, been more generous with my time, more earnest in my prayers, more ready to share what I have, he might not be dead, and the person who killed him might not have been impelled to murder. The same applies to all of us, with respect to all those who have died arbitrarily and to all those who have done murder.
Mea maxima culpa.
So here is "Everybody Get Flat."
Happy Belated Birthday and Rest in Peace, my brother.
Everybody get flat – a dub
Where is the poem
that explains
what happens
to you when
they shoot your brother
and you hear
that his brains
spilled over the seat
to the back of the car
and you have to tell folks,
“No it wasn’t a war.
No, he wasn’t
caught in crossfire
No it wasn’t a fight.
Yes it happened at night
but no, not in town
out in the country
not a God soul around.
No, he didn’t launder money.
No he wasn’t into dope.
Just a man with a plan
and a fervent hope.
What was the motive?
The police can’t find
not a rhyme not a reason
why they kill the man.
Just a random execution –
So, no, we don’t have a clue
why he might have been killed.
Yes I guess you could say
God must have willed
it. What? God willed it?
No the priest said.
God don’t will
no slaughtered dead.
God allow us our own way.
So we turn into a place
with a theme song that say
“Everybody get flat –
dog coming through!”
And dog mean gun
and is all in fun
don’t mind people
have to run
down in the ghetto
every God-sent day
from the teeth of the dog.
But I guess we have a way
to grit our teeth
and carry on through.
Till a bullet come
and you pray
it’s not for you.
© Copyright Pamela Mordecai, author of THE TRUE BLUE OF ISLANDS and PINK ICING: STORIES.
All rights reserved.
No part of this blog may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Strategies for keeping on blogging
I have to arrive at some strategies that will enable me to avoid these hiatuses. This one's not as long as it may have seemed. I was blogging all through May (I did mention it in a previous post) at Open Book Toronto. It was a very enjoyable gig. Many thanks again, to Amy, Clelia, and OBT! And also to my inimitable, generous, joy of an editor, Gillian Rodgerson.
But I've not been here for all of June and a big chunk of July. Too long! I'm thinking that if I can't find the time to write something coherent, I'll post a poem or a part of a story, or maybe a whole story. On the subject of whole stories online, I visited Neil Gaiman's site recently. If you've never been, go have a look. Amazing!
That brings me to another strategy. I'll post interesting people and events I've come across, actually or virtually - worthwhile stuff, hopefully, as this blog won't ever be about whether or not I've been having a headache or bought a new toothbrush or had a fight with my best beloved. Not that those things are unimportant, but I'm not called to write about them, not here anyway.
So, because this has to be a quick one, here are some recent encounters.
Saw Kate Story, author of the novel BLASTED, this week. Am reading the novel, at the minute. She's funny, and funny ain't easy to write!
Saw JAMAICA FOR SALE http://www.jamaicaforsale.net/ a documentary by Esther Figueroa and Diana McCaulay at the Caribbean Tales Film Festival today. (Plaudits to Frances-Anne Solomon for the Fest, in its fourth year!) It's overwhelming. It's heartbreaking. It's how to ruin a small island with ostensible 'tourism development'! It's a formidable piece of work. And it has a ten second clip of yours truly, doing an interview for JIS-TV too long ago to even remember when. See it if you can. Support the effort to save a collapsing environment and the livelihoods of the 'small people' who depend on it.
Also if you haven't been here http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/ just GO! Listen to poets reading their work, Guillaume Apollinaire (yup!), Kamau Brathwaite and Christian Bok and endless other. No Walcott, though. Wonder why?
Heard from Rethabile Masilo, who is about to travel from Paris to this side with his family. Travel safe, and have a great time, Rethabile.
Liz Hearne, wife of the late Jamaican author, John Hearne and mother of super editor at UWI Press, Shivaun, died recently. Our condolences to her family and loved ones. We'll miss Liz.
One more big piece of news, but it'll keep till next time. Walk good meantime.
But I've not been here for all of June and a big chunk of July. Too long! I'm thinking that if I can't find the time to write something coherent, I'll post a poem or a part of a story, or maybe a whole story. On the subject of whole stories online, I visited Neil Gaiman's site recently. If you've never been, go have a look. Amazing!
That brings me to another strategy. I'll post interesting people and events I've come across, actually or virtually - worthwhile stuff, hopefully, as this blog won't ever be about whether or not I've been having a headache or bought a new toothbrush or had a fight with my best beloved. Not that those things are unimportant, but I'm not called to write about them, not here anyway.
So, because this has to be a quick one, here are some recent encounters.
Saw Kate Story, author of the novel BLASTED, this week. Am reading the novel, at the minute. She's funny, and funny ain't easy to write!
Saw JAMAICA FOR SALE http://www.jamaicaforsale.net/ a documentary by Esther Figueroa and Diana McCaulay at the Caribbean Tales Film Festival today. (Plaudits to Frances-Anne Solomon for the Fest, in its fourth year!) It's overwhelming. It's heartbreaking. It's how to ruin a small island with ostensible 'tourism development'! It's a formidable piece of work. And it has a ten second clip of yours truly, doing an interview for JIS-TV too long ago to even remember when. See it if you can. Support the effort to save a collapsing environment and the livelihoods of the 'small people' who depend on it.
Also if you haven't been here http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/ just GO! Listen to poets reading their work, Guillaume Apollinaire (yup!), Kamau Brathwaite and Christian Bok and endless other. No Walcott, though. Wonder why?
Heard from Rethabile Masilo, who is about to travel from Paris to this side with his family. Travel safe, and have a great time, Rethabile.
Liz Hearne, wife of the late Jamaican author, John Hearne and mother of super editor at UWI Press, Shivaun, died recently. Our condolences to her family and loved ones. We'll miss Liz.
One more big piece of news, but it'll keep till next time. Walk good meantime.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Visit to Calgary: Part Three
My last engagement in Calgary on this winter 2009 visit was at St Stephen’s Church downtown http://www.ststephenscalgary.org/ where, on Friday March 6, Howard Gallimore, Jamaican-Calgarian who had read with me on my previous visit, joined me, reprising his role of Samuel, as we read my Good Friday poem, De Man. I read Naomi. I am a Roman Catholic, as is Howard, but, as the Lord would have it, the readings of this poem in Calgary have, on both occasions, taken place in Anglican churches. We are grateful to our Anglican brethren for hosting us on both occasions.
The story of the reading was a Jamaican pumpkin vine story, running off in different directions as it put out its blossoms and then bore fruit. Dr Cecille DePass, a Professor at U of C, and a good friend and supporter, had, when she heard I was coming back this year to visit the University once more, offered to put me up once I’d fulfilled my obligations to the University. In addition, since the visit would again be in Lent, she had proposed that I do a reading of De Man, as I had done in 2007. Professor DePass is that rara avis, that endangered species, an enabler. So she undertook to find a church that would host the reading. Enter Dr Jean Springer, Rector’s Warden at St Stephen’s and a good friend of Cecille’s – and, unknown to me, an old friend of my husband’s family. In fact, his father was married in her parents’ house, the Barretts and the Mordecais having known one another from Columbus came over. Jean agreed to approach Rev. Brian Pearson, the rector at St Stephen’s, and we were delighted when we heard that he had agreed. Jean and I spoke on the phone, I discovered the family connection – I knew Jean’s sister, concert pianist, Nerine Barrett – and when I came to Calgary, Jean took to me to lunch and we got to know each other a bit better.
Which was how, on the evening of Friday March 6th, Rev. Pearson came to be welcoming Howard and me and introducing us to a small but welcoming audience at St Stephen’s. We could not have been more received more thoughtfully. We had met the associate priest, Rev. Cathy Fulton, and also Brian’s wife, Jean, beforehand. There were microphones and lecterns at the ready, the church was lit, and there was water to hand. We were promised refreshments in the Canterbury Room afterwards.
A little bit about the poem: De Man: a performance poem is my second book of poetry, and is really a verse play. A two-hander written entirely in Jamaican Creole, it is the story of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ as reported by two imagined characters, Naomi, a maid in the court of Pilate’s wife, and Samuel, a disabled carpenter of Nazareth to whom Joseph taught the trade. It has been performed many times in Canada and in Jamaica.
But it is always a challenge, especially in Canada, where we, the performers, are aware that we are reading in a language that is not familiar to many in the audience. We make adjustments for this, but even then, one is never sure. It helps when, as has been the case on both occasions, there are Caribbean people in the audience. Naomi and Samuel have their own story, which unfolds as they watch Jesus on his way to Calvary. Naomi is a bit of a busybody, and a forthright speaker of her opinions, and, never mind that this is a terrible tale, there are light moments, as there must have been when the true history happened.
After the performance, we gathered in the Canterbury Room for refreshments, graciously provided by parishioners and well-wishers. Everyone I spoke to said that that it had been deeply moving, and that those who hadn’t come had missed something. English speakers found that they could understand once they became accustomed to the rhythms of the Creole. People generously purchased books, a portion of the sales having been promised to support the church’s ministry.
The reading was memorable for another reason. We discovered later that, unbeknown to us, Howard’s grandmother in Toronto had died while we were performing the poem.
Someone in the audience asked me, as we spoke afterwards, if I had seen the movie, The Passion of the Christ. I told him that I hadn’t and wondered why he had asked. He recalled Samuel’s description, as he observed the clothes being torn off of Jesus:
Dem tearing off him clothes
And scab and blood and skin
And flesh hold onto dem.
Him is a open wound.
A walking sore.
He had never seen or heard those details before – not until he’d seen the movie. I explained that I’d imagined what would have happened if a man had been whipped till he was bleeding, then had clothes put on him, then had them torn off when the blood had dried. When I returned to Toronto, my husband pointed out that the poem had been published in 1995, while the movie had been released in 2004.
I was very surprised and pleased at the invitation to have us back to repeat the performance on Good Friday! We are both – indeed all – extremely grateful to the clergy, staff and parishioners at St Stephen’s for hosting us, and in particular, to Dr Jean Springer for trusting, sight unseen, in the story of De Man. It was a great experience for both Howard and myself, I know. The plan is that we will come back for Easter next year, since it was not have possible to accept the invitation to return this Easter.
I think we all look forward to that time.
The story of the reading was a Jamaican pumpkin vine story, running off in different directions as it put out its blossoms and then bore fruit. Dr Cecille DePass, a Professor at U of C, and a good friend and supporter, had, when she heard I was coming back this year to visit the University once more, offered to put me up once I’d fulfilled my obligations to the University. In addition, since the visit would again be in Lent, she had proposed that I do a reading of De Man, as I had done in 2007. Professor DePass is that rara avis, that endangered species, an enabler. So she undertook to find a church that would host the reading. Enter Dr Jean Springer, Rector’s Warden at St Stephen’s and a good friend of Cecille’s – and, unknown to me, an old friend of my husband’s family. In fact, his father was married in her parents’ house, the Barretts and the Mordecais having known one another from Columbus came over. Jean agreed to approach Rev. Brian Pearson, the rector at St Stephen’s, and we were delighted when we heard that he had agreed. Jean and I spoke on the phone, I discovered the family connection – I knew Jean’s sister, concert pianist, Nerine Barrett – and when I came to Calgary, Jean took to me to lunch and we got to know each other a bit better.
Which was how, on the evening of Friday March 6th, Rev. Pearson came to be welcoming Howard and me and introducing us to a small but welcoming audience at St Stephen’s. We could not have been more received more thoughtfully. We had met the associate priest, Rev. Cathy Fulton, and also Brian’s wife, Jean, beforehand. There were microphones and lecterns at the ready, the church was lit, and there was water to hand. We were promised refreshments in the Canterbury Room afterwards.
A little bit about the poem: De Man: a performance poem is my second book of poetry, and is really a verse play. A two-hander written entirely in Jamaican Creole, it is the story of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ as reported by two imagined characters, Naomi, a maid in the court of Pilate’s wife, and Samuel, a disabled carpenter of Nazareth to whom Joseph taught the trade. It has been performed many times in Canada and in Jamaica.
But it is always a challenge, especially in Canada, where we, the performers, are aware that we are reading in a language that is not familiar to many in the audience. We make adjustments for this, but even then, one is never sure. It helps when, as has been the case on both occasions, there are Caribbean people in the audience. Naomi and Samuel have their own story, which unfolds as they watch Jesus on his way to Calvary. Naomi is a bit of a busybody, and a forthright speaker of her opinions, and, never mind that this is a terrible tale, there are light moments, as there must have been when the true history happened.
After the performance, we gathered in the Canterbury Room for refreshments, graciously provided by parishioners and well-wishers. Everyone I spoke to said that that it had been deeply moving, and that those who hadn’t come had missed something. English speakers found that they could understand once they became accustomed to the rhythms of the Creole. People generously purchased books, a portion of the sales having been promised to support the church’s ministry.
The reading was memorable for another reason. We discovered later that, unbeknown to us, Howard’s grandmother in Toronto had died while we were performing the poem.
Someone in the audience asked me, as we spoke afterwards, if I had seen the movie, The Passion of the Christ. I told him that I hadn’t and wondered why he had asked. He recalled Samuel’s description, as he observed the clothes being torn off of Jesus:
Dem tearing off him clothes
And scab and blood and skin
And flesh hold onto dem.
Him is a open wound.
A walking sore.
He had never seen or heard those details before – not until he’d seen the movie. I explained that I’d imagined what would have happened if a man had been whipped till he was bleeding, then had clothes put on him, then had them torn off when the blood had dried. When I returned to Toronto, my husband pointed out that the poem had been published in 1995, while the movie had been released in 2004.
I was very surprised and pleased at the invitation to have us back to repeat the performance on Good Friday! We are both – indeed all – extremely grateful to the clergy, staff and parishioners at St Stephen’s for hosting us, and in particular, to Dr Jean Springer for trusting, sight unseen, in the story of De Man. It was a great experience for both Howard and myself, I know. The plan is that we will come back for Easter next year, since it was not have possible to accept the invitation to return this Easter.
I think we all look forward to that time.
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