Current Issue

If sharing between two makes a memory complete,
what happens when one forgets,
and every Do you remember? is met with a blank look.
A shake of the head, No, I don’t remember.
I don’t remember at all.

As I reflected on George Lamming’s life, a remarkable life, on where he was born in the village of Carrington, of the island of his birth, Barbados, and then on his profound literary and personal commitments to the Caribbean, I reflected and thought about these islands of ours washed by the Carib

“…the end of all our exploring, will be to arrive where we started. And know the place for the first time”.

—Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot

“Well, the work that I’ve tried to do is to make people aware of the history of kinship.

Introduction

Today, the Caribbean theorist Sylvia Wynter is considered a seminal critical theorist.

Introduction

The term pan-Caribbean does not have a single definition. The very geographical parameters of pan-Caribbean are debatable. However, within this instability, this essay is grounded in the Caribbean perspective of what constitutes the pan-Caribbean.

“Language is the perfect instrument of empire.”

—Bishop of Avila to Queen Isabella of Castile, 1492

“Language is also the perfect instrument of anti-imperialism.”

—Paula Burnet

The difficulty with having a famous namesake is that people often see evidence of a personality that is not actually there. Someone called Edison likely has no ability to innovate, in the same way naming a child Zico will not guarantee the ability to dribble.

Before I turned sixteen, my mother invited me to learn to cook. In response to my disinterest, she asked what I would do when I was married. I told her it was not my des- tiny to cook for a man.

“Fish die by their tongue.” That was the legend I read underneath the drawing of a fish in a wooden frame hanging on the gate. It was the Summer of ’77. I was descending the slope from a Kumina celebration in St. Thomas, Jamaica. I went home and typed four foolscap pages on my old typewriter.

A road razzled with restaurant signs and menu boards,
lights twinkling in the eaves, winking a come-on at the tourists;
glimpses—between the tall hedges—of hotel staff, busy
in black and white, a slash of colour, slice of a smile;

When the dead return
they will come to you in dream
and in waking, will be the bird
knocking, knocking against glass, seeking
a way in, will masquerade
as the wind, its voice made audible
by the tongues of leaves, greedily
lapping, as the waves’ self-made fugue

The lady dreams herself shut out
her lord in the castle
his lady without.

He waves from a window
a long way away
she doesn’t know what
he intends to convey.

One evening in dreamtime
the wind blew right
and a voice floated down
from that worrying height.

My main subject is communication: whether it’s a dialogue between the materials I choose to work with and the subject matter of the painting itself; a dialogue among the shapes, colours, shadows, and light that I paint; the ongoing dialogue between the different collections of my work as I change

In recent years, the general representation of slavery, including its representation in art and literature, has gained considerable significance in practice as well as in theoretical, academic and critical reflections, and in cultural activities such as exhibitions, festivals, broadcasts, media,

          One of our poets asks the poignant question: how can we write such beauty in the midst of this misery? Certainly in our present times, COVID-19 is a constant and deadly threat.

for Linda

Our table holds its share of broken bread,
rituals old as trust, our gift of early fire.

Still, I long for rain, wild winds dancing
about the ear, even as pages of fixed light

Carnival Sunday. July 19, 2020

Sometimes, I wake into perfect days.
Hills green my window, see me south
to cloud-high Sociere.

West is the blue bay: Choc,
pivoting round Walcott’s Island
in the lee of a land so fair

J’ai écouté l’appel de la mer
avant l’empreinte de tes mots
sur ma langue

Avant l’impact de tes yeux sur ma joue
j’ai humé la beauté de l’ile
et les  couleurs de la terre ont
posé des éclats d’orage sur mon front

I had listened to the call of the sea
before the print of your words
on my tongue

Before the impact of your eyes on my cheek
I had breathed the island beauty
and the colors of the land
had put thunder slivers on my brow