I went. I saw. It conquered.Kudos to Maria. I'll be back later to amend this post and add thoughts and observations.But in short: it was a fine opening film for the Festival. Well done to all.
tongues of the ocean is an online literary journal of Bahamian, Caribbean and related poetry. We’re an affiliate of the Bahamas International Literary Festival, but BILF isn’t responsible for what we decide to do (so don’t blame them!). We publish three times a year - in February, June, and October. We reserve the right to be picky about what we publish. For now we’re focussing on poems and poem-related material, but that could change. Interested in submitting? Read here for more details.Here’s some of the stuff we’ll be including in tongues:writers on writers - writers talk about the work of another writer. Like a review, only hotter. Bahamians & residents only, to begin with, but we’ll get friendlier as we go on. We’d like to start with a focus on Bahamian and Caribbean greats.bredren and sistren - section for Caribbean and Southern US writers, for West Africans - for our siblings and cousins in the diaspora, and for our spiritual kin around the world. We reserve the right.catch a fire - in every issue we’ll include a section inspired by word prompts, which we’ll post with the call for submissions. For now, this is the only place we’ll accept fiction, and only flash fiction (for our purposes, fiction under 300 words). Prose poems are welcome. Transgress boundaries. Push.Editor-in-chief: Nicolette BethelSpoken Word: Nadine Thomas-Brown(Blurb taken from the "about us" page of the journal. Logo photograph by Eric Rose.)
Headsup -- upgrading. Just in case there are problems, take note.
Not to worry. I haven't forgotten. I got sidetracked by the USA and Obama and all the subsequent excitement, and I've fallen behind by a couple of weeks.However, look for two more podcasts over the weekend. That will conclude the series on Culture, Arts and CARIFESTA.And then?We'll see.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHgKcPP6yK0&hl=en&fs=1]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obNHqWQ4XMQ&w=425&h=344]Go check it out.
Geoffrey Philp linked me in this some time ago, and I'm going to try indulge in it now.
Friendship Around the World AwardJack Mandora, whose blog I admire, has passed this award along to me with the mandate of sharing it with friends whom I’ve met through blogging. I will add that they became my friends because of the remarkable content of their blogs.
I have to say my blogging practices have changed lately, and I haven't done as much reading as I should, but let me start. So here are mine - part I.Geoffrey Philp's Blog Spot - Geoffrey PhilpThere are lots of Caribbean blogs out there, but not so many that deal with literature. Geoffrey's one that I read, partly because I know him in person, but also because I like his observations.Heraclitean Fire - Harry RutherfordOK, I'm a poet in my spare time, and I read lots and lots of poetry blogs, many of which I visit on a very regular basis. But Harry writes about more than poetry, and his links are always interesting. Unless he's talking about some sport or another, I find every post of his fascinating, probably because he's able to synthesize material really well. It's a skill that I admire and to which I aspire. Bahama Pundit - Larry Smith, et al.The idea behind this blog is to bring Bahamian columnists together in one online spot and give us a platform that reaches beyond the newspaper circulation. I like and admire Larry as a reporter. He does his homework and makes observations that hold up after some scrutiny, and his fellow columnists are also pretty interesting. (I was one of them for a while, and hope to be again, but that's not the reason I picked this blog!) Maybe it's a little to localized for most people, but it's worth a look in my books.Weblog Bahamas - Rick Lowe et al.I read Rick's blog because he and I hold opposite views of the world in just about everything except the potential and the need of human beings to make their own realities. It's good to see what libertarians, and especially white Bahamian libertarians, are thinking, even if I disagree from the pit of my stomach with 99.999999999% of what they think. But Rick doesn't only talk about politics and economics. He also reads some pretty interesting stuff, he has eclectic taste in music, he takes some cool photos, and he doesn't let you go away without having been provoked in some way or another. And some of his co-authors are almost as good.Signifyin' Guyana - Charmaine D. Valere's blogI read this blog because Charmaine doesn't just write about Caribbean issues, she also reads and reviews work by Caribbean (primarily Guyanese) writers, and her perspective is an interesting one. She's part of the diaspora, lives outside the region, but she's part of the global Caribbean that is going to transform our nations in years to come. Go Charmaine.Carter's Little Pill - Julie Carter's blogAs I said, I read lots of poetry blogs. Julie's, like Harry's, isn't all about poetry, though it could be because her poems are kick-ass. But there's a lot about Julie in it too, and I like what I see of Julie online. It's because of her and what she wrote that made me suspect Ohio was going to vote for Obama. Well worth a read.Savage Minds - Group blog about anthropologyYes, I'm a poet and a Caribbean woman, but don't forget I'm an anthropologist as well. There are other anthro blogs out there, but this one strikes closest to me and my particular training -- social anthropology with a distinct UK/European bias and a deep admiration and love for (though not always acceptance of) the theories of Claude Levi-Strauss.I'll stop there for now, but I'll be back. There are some people I missed. But you have to excuse me -- Obama and the world's changing are taking up some of my time.If I've called your name, go spread the meme!
Four Fingers and a ThumbOn a hot day in a school in Laventille, I am reasoning with a student. This beautiful young woman of 17 years or so. I say to her, what do you want to be? She laughs and says a stripper.Her classmates laugh too, because to them it is a joke, as funny as their lives being lived out in predictable boxes.On a hot day in a school in Laventille painted in colours disturbingly similar to the wall around the Royal Gaol, this beautiful young woman sums up the totality of her potential in saying that she wants to be a stripper.I am not amused. I am also not surprised that she doesn’t hesitate to respond in the negative. I fight the urge to run from the room screaming and crying because she is living proof that you can build buildings but if you don’t build the people, your social fabric will crumble and then what is the point of phallic concrete edifices in you city?I suggest to her that she creates her own reality. I suggest to her that words have power and if you call yourself a whore enough, the ease of the words on your tongue will numb you to the dread reality of your actions.I ask her again what she wants to be. She says that what she wants for herself is not what other people want for her.She says she wants to be a hairdresser and a singer. And I wonder who has told her that she can’t be anything she puts her mind to.
This is from a blog by Trinidadian writer Attilah Springer, who wrote it on Saturday while engaging in the "escapist fantasy" that Barack Hussein Obama might win the US election. I posted it because it is so fundamentally true in so many places that are growing young people of colour.The "No You Can't" mentality is pervasive throughout the world, not just in the USA, and it's in part because our leaders swallowed wholesale and without critical examination the concept that there are first and second and third class citizens in this world, and people of colour never break into the first group, and it's also in part because the popular media really only promote images of non-white people engaging in sex, drugs, violence and angry, nihilistic music. It's also in part because our leaders see no value in supporting an economy or a culture that enables us to create alternative images for our own young people.Until now.The fact that Obama has been elected President of the United States of America means something. It means something to all of us, and it's far more than just the fact that he's African-American (and when we apply that to him, it means something real, it's not just another synonym for black/negro/nigger/ex-slave). It means that the people who elected him, who are overwhelmingly under 30, of all backgrounds, ethnicities, genders, beliefs and class are the people who are creating new realities for us. And maybe it also means that something of that hope, of that new reality, will trickle down to the rest of us in the African diasporic world. It isn't going to come easily, and it isn't going to come automatically. But what it does mean is that we can no longer fool ourselves that our destinies are out of our hands. And it means too that throughout the Caribbean we must make our own futures. We have to confront those politicians who have nothing but old ideas, stuff fed to them by imperialists and racists and people who didn't even realize that they were imperialistic and racist but who were force-feeding those worldviews anyway, and tell them it ain't like that anymore.And we have to kill the "No We Can't" attitude stone dead.Dare to dream. America just has had its dream come true. Time for us to dream big too.
I'm in New York City this week. I'm in New York today. It's part of a regular pilgrimage we make to the city every year if we can make it; above all, my husband's a theatre director, and this is part of his investment in his career, this is part of his own research. Since we've been married it's been part of mine, which has been good for the playwriting side of me.But being in the US on election day, especially this election day, is historic.This election is historic. It's already been so -- the fact that two major contenders for president were visible minorities, albeit in the same party. Whoever wins will make history -- the first black president, the first female vice-president, the oldest president. But history has already been made.What's historic for me in my adult life is the participation of the American people in the vote. Since Reagan, which was the last time that I remember an election generating as much discussion as this one, there's been a distancing between the average citizen on the streets from their leadership. Perhaps it was the result of the contempt shown for good sense by the nomination of a B movie actor as Republican Presidential candidate back in 1980, I don't know; it certainly seemed like that to me. So it's true I was seventeen at the time, and frightened for the world. So it's true that it was a terrifying time for those of us who didn't have any say, for those of us who weren't moved by the smooth delivery of the man who would be president (and why wouldn't he have a smooth delivery? He was an actor, after all, not that there's anything wrong with that, but he made his living all his life by being able to deliver lines.) But the election of Reagan marked, it seemed to me, watching from the outside, an abdication on the part of the majority of the American people of their right to participate in the democratic process.As Gil Scott-Heron observed in his commentary on that election:
Well, the first thing I want to say is:Mandate my ass! Because it seems as though we've been convinced that 26% of the registered voters, not even 26% of the American people, but 26% of the registered voters form a mandate or a landslide. 21% voted for Skippy and 3, 4% voted for somebody else who might have been running.("B-Movie")
Being on the outside in American elections, watching a fraction of the American people go to the polls and elect leaders whose impact resonated far beyond the borders of the USA, and suffering the consequences of those choices, has not been easy. As a result I've distanced myself from all of the elections. Why work myself up about something I can do nothing about? Why worry about how "they" stole the election in Florida (twice) when I could have never made a difference anyway? And more recently, why get worked up about this presidential race when I could never do anything to affect its outcome?
I know the answer to the last question. It's been answered again and again around the world, and yes, I voted in the if-the-world-could-vote poll, and yes, I voted for Obama. But I'm above all a Bahamian, and Bahamians above all are pragmatic people, and fundamentally what matters is what have we learned from this process? What have we learned from the involvement of ordinary Bahamians in the Obama campaign? What have we learned from the real chance of real change, and how will that affect us at home?
Because our last election was a joke. I've said what I can say about it; we voted based on hype, rather like we go to see movies at Galleria, more than on anything of substance. We never questioned our candidates about anything likely to affect us and our nation in the long run. We never demanded from them what we have seen from the American candidates. We never dissected the spin, if spin it was; we never educated ourselves in any general sense on issues, on anything that might actually matter. No. We preferred to go along with what the newspapers said, with what the talk shows said, voting from emotion rather than reason, allowing both parties to get away with sheer idiocy that has very little to do with the world in which we find ourselves.
And how much do we really, even now, understand about the world in which we find ourselves? In our Bahama-for-Obama frenzy (which, understand me, I share), how much do we understand what that means for us? How much do we really appreciate about the implications of a victory for Barack, which is (at the risk of jinxing a sure thing) the likely outcome of this vote today? It goes beyond the glib Democrats-are-bad-for-our-economy platitudes (which are pretty shallowly-based it seems to me, and have not really considered the idea from the point of view of history; was Truman bad for our economy? Kennedy? Was Roosevelt throughout his career, or was it only at the beginning when he repealed the idiotic Volstead Act?)
Here's the thing. How can we, after this election, which has already been historic no matter what the outcome, in that it's likely to be one of the few American election in half a century or so where far more than 26% of the registered voters turned out, go back to thinking of ourselves in the same way? How can we maintain the sense of victimhood that allows us to get away with the systemic mediocrity, institutional cowardice and bullying that have marked our preferred way of doing things for well over twenty years? How can we continue to allow ourselves to doubt ourselves after this?
You tell me.
The CARIFESTA podcast for this week is being edited. I just happen to be out of town for the whole week, with a fairly busy schedule, so it'll go up when it goes up.Watch this space.
*ahem* - Thanks, Geoffrey, I think ...
Friendship Around the World AwardBlogworld: Nicolette is not only a scholar and poet, but also someone who writes critically about the state of Caribbean life and letters....Now, fellow awardees, you all have a job to do. Tell me about your favorites
Give me some time and I'll do so.
And it's worth another visit, and another.
BEAUTIFUL, ALSO, ARE THE SOULS OF MY BLACK SISTERSA BLOGSITE FOR THE PRAISING OF ALL THINGS BEAUTIFUL AND SUBLIME IN HONOR OF ALL BLACK WOMEN. A BLOGSITE TO SPEAK THE TRUTH OF BLACK WOMEN’S HISTORY AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN AMERICA.“ONLY THE BLACK WOMAN CAN SAY “WHEN AND WHERE I ENTER, IN THE QUIET, AND UNDISPUTED DIGNITY OF MY WOMANHOOD, WITHOUT VIOLENCE AND WITHOUT SUING OR SPECIAL PATRONAGE, THEN AND THERE THE WHOLE. . . RACE ENTERS WITH ME”.ANNA JULIA COOPER, 1892
Got this from zotz, aka Drew Roberts, who is a passionate proponent of creative commons licensing, of a rethinking of the copyright laws of the twentieth century:http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/showplayer.swf?enablejs=true&file=http%3A//blip.tv/rss/flash/730724&autostart=false
I wanted to post it, and link to the page it came from, because I agree with it, 95%. My reservation comes when I'm thinking about our local creative work. Creative commons is all very well when it's applied to corporations versus individuals -- the very issues that are being discussed above. But what happens when corporations lay claim to the intellectual property of countries, cultures, groups? What recourse do the creators have then? I am still a supporter of copyright law when it applies to those peoples and cultures who did not get to benefit from the turning of knowledge into capital that occurred in the twentieth century; I believe that without the fundamental comprehension that what we imagine and make is worth cash we in the Americas will continue to do what we were established to do by Europe and its successors in North America -- provide the raw material for others to refine, market, sell, and profit from.But check out the video. It's still something worth discussing. Good food for thought.
The title is a quotation from James Baldwin. I got it from the address given by Obediah Michael Smith at the Bahamas Writers' Forum held at Chapter One Bookstore last month.I've meant to post an excerpt from that address for some time, but never did for one reason or another. The time, however, has come.Hear, now, from Obediah:
I can still recall the impact of encountering this remark by James Baldwin for the very first time: "If you don't know my name, you don't know your own."With what was this assertion connected? In other words, what was Baldwin saying? Who or what was he saying it about and to who were these remarks addressed? Is this James Baldwin the poet, novelist and playwright having come into his own? Is he addressing his country, The United States of America? His was certainly one of the most definitive voices of the crisis of the '60 in the U.S.A.James Baldwin, the writer, the citizen, with confidence, with arrogance even, asserts his significance. If I am insignificant he states to his United States of America or whom ever he is confronting, you are as well, without significance.It is about identity too. If I am nobody in America, who is to be considered somebody? If his identity was in questing, whose wasn't? Who had definition if he hadn't?Baldwin's confidence at this point seems to have resulted from a new found self-awareness, his own awakening as it were.As a writer, as person, as citizen, Baldwin would have struggled with himself, his art, and his world to rescue and to cultivate a self.Like a gardener with the flowers blooming - with the sun shining on them - with the rain falling on them, he seems satisfied. His words, somewhat boastful, are about success.He has gotten somewhere; he has produced something, himself. This he offers up. It is prayer or it is weapon or it is both.Baldwin's suggestion is about being tied together. He is tied to whomever he is addressing and they are tied to him. It is the right hand and the left hand or two feet to stand on or two eyes to see with. Baldwin's words are about things that come and go, like the blood, to and from the heart.I found it convenient recently; right here at home, to assert myself using these very words. What an important moment it was for me, I thought initially.A lady called to extend an invitation to me to appear as a guest on a local radio show. I was feeling quite good about it and going agreeably along until I was told of the need to supply them with questions I wanted to be asked.Oh, discovery finally, I thought. This has to indicate national curiosity about my poetry. This call, I though, suggested that someone had invested in knowing about my work. To ask me to provide questions though, suggested the very opposite.It was just more of me knowing about me. I have over time, read hundreds of interview. There was never any indication that this is how it was done. Where therefore was the scholarship? It seemed an attempt to stage something and suggest that it was actually happening. It seemed dishonest. It seemed like an attempt to deceive the Bahamian public or whoever the intended audience was."I am the producer," said this lady, "and this is how I [she might have said we] do it!" I insisted upon wishing to be interviewed by someone aware of or familiar with my work.She decided it was time to update me. "I do not who you are," she said. "Before just recently, I had never heard of you.""Why therefore am I receiving this call?" I asked, perplexed.She was the producer. It was the host of the show, she said, who asked to have me on.I've published 10 books I told her. And you're the producer? I asked. Abruptly our conversation concluded. I was insulted and angry.This seemed the perfect occasion for Baldwin's words I'd known and loved so well for so many years. These words were the weapon this moment needed. I sent her an e-mail: "If you don't know my name, you don't know your own!" I enjoyed these words very much.
Amusing, yes. But frightening on some level also, surely.
"He was the most industrious person I've ever known, and very meticulous and always checked details. He never seemed to get flustered. He could multi-task better than anybody I know. And he was a workaholic," long-time friend and former politician Michael Lightbourn told The Tribune .... Mr Lightbourn was a member of the short-lived Social Democratic Party (SDP), which was organised and led by Mr Solomon in 1979. The SDP served as opposition to the Pindling administration until 1981. Mr Lightbourn last spoke with Mr Solomon two weeks ago when his "fading" health was evident. "They were hoping to bring him back, but he was in such ill health, they were nervous about whether he could handle the travel and they got him out in Naples, Florida just before the hurricane (Ike) threatened," said Mr Lightbourn, adding that Mr Solomon s health was going "downhill" for "quite some time." Sir Arthur Foulkes, former Bahamas high commissioner to London, described his counterpart as a "great Bahamian." "I've observed Parliament for more than half a century now, from outside and from inside, and Mr Solomon was a formidable parliamentary debater and I can think of no parliamentarian who went to Parliament more meticulously prepared for a debate than Norman Solomon." Dubbed "Stormin' Norman" by the press, the one time leader of the opposition is also known for the courageous stance he took in the House of Assembly during the early 80s when he revealed drug lord Carlos "Joe" Lehder's illicit trade on Norman's Cay. Said former Tribune news editor Athena Damianos: "While others were engaged in a massive cover-up that put the country on its present path of lawlessness, Norman told Parliament that Norman's Cay was the site of one of the largest drug smuggling operations in this part of the world." His home and car were later fire-bombed. He founded the Nassau Tourism Development Board (NTDB) in 1994 and served as co-chairman until his flailing health forced him to step down in February, 2007. He remained an honorary chairman of NTDB until his death. "The Bahamas has lost one of its true patriots. Mr Norman Solomon was the founding Chairman of the Nassau Tourism and Development Board in 1994. In life and in passing, he has remained our conscience, our motivator, a steady and guiding hand, and a visionary for what we, and in particular his beloved historic city of Nassau, could be. His outstanding contributions to the nation's development as a businessman, journalist, politician and activist must be celebrated. Our sympathies go out to his family in this time of sorrow," Charles Klonaris, NTDB Chairman said ....
are Swedish.And one of them read my last post, and commented. Actually, she did so over on Facebook, where my blog posts are imported as notes, but I liked what she said enough to bring it back over here.Her point is that Engdahl didn't mean cultural hegemony as much as he meant linguistic hegemony. Now he may well have, and assumed that it would be understood by a global audience as well as it is clearly understood by his fellow Swedes (Ella picked it up immediately, and it went whooshing over my head). Here's Ella offering her support to him, and making some good points as she does so:
arrogant, Moi?ah... and perhaps this is in part a knee-jerk nationalistic reaction on my part... but i think there's an element of truth in what Horace Engdahl is saying, though by pinning it on the US alone, he undermines the credibility of his argument. I think it IS fair to say that the English speaking literary world is insular - to its detriment. in part, that's linked to the sheer volume of English language literature published yearly (and i think there are valid concerns about how the sustainability of the publishing industry's current model of swamping the market in order to trail for bestsellers, but that's another argument...) - you could, theoretically, never NEED to read something new which wasn't originally written in English, and still have plenty of unread Englsih lit and criticism to spare when you died. i get that. and, obviously, smaller languages don't have to contend with that sort of embarrassment of riches and therefore HAVE to translate work in order to be able to provide readers with enough new material to 'feed' a readership which can read as much as its englsih counterparts, but obviously can't produce as much literature. i get this too.
but the side effect of that need for translation is that it becomes seen as a virtue in itself, and i genuinely believe that to be the case. but even in the uk, where you can take a train to mainland europe, there's a very small proportion of total new literature (both critical and fiction) which was originally in another language. and, noticeably, a lot of them are actually recent nobel prize winners. (if the nobel prize committe sees part of it's job as promoting non-english language literature, surely that's a positive thing?) from what i've seen of US bookstores and curricula, the problem is even more exacerbated there - which inevitably influences contemporary US authors. so, i actually think that horace engdahl is making a valid argument about the negative influence of cultural (or rather, linguistic) hegemony on the work of contemporary US fiction - of course its broad brush and imperfect (paul auster springs to mind as an obvious exception), though he phrases it in the most obnoxious way imaginable.
Last week I wanted to spend some time expanding on why I found Engdahl's comment -- as it was reported (and I know that there's a gap between what he said and what was picked up) offensive. This week, if I find the time, I'll expand more fully on what I wanted to say. Meanwhile, it's all food for thought.