Rebelistic | Caribbean Poets and Poetry
Poets are rebels. What they choose to rebel against is up to them. It is interesting nonetheless, how art can be formed around words and words can transform into art. I am astounded by voices that stretch around the globe about topics expanding on colonization, freedom, sex, relationships, Rastafarianism, LGTBQ issues, black identity, religion and the list goes on. Poets can be very powerful and effective and shouldn’t go unnoticed. They may be speaking directly to you.
Often times in the Caribbean, athleticism and the music industry receive an abundance of attention and admiration, which is good. However, the arts in the Caribbean tend to get overlooked and unnoticed on an international level. The potential is obviously there in a vast number of categories including literature, film production, modeling, designing, poetry, etc. Sometimes, but rarely, does a project make it to an international platform and sometimes the world misses out on really creative, innovative, inspiring people and ventures within the Caribbean arts and entertainment industry.
Poetic voices scream loudly from the Caribbean. Usually the voices transform and crossover into the music industry. Many reggae/dancehall artists and songs originate as poems written by poets. For the artists, sometimes they naturally transition into the music industry. It is easier and a lot more lucrative to do so. Caribbean poetry has influenced a lot of artists and art internationally, yet sometimes the poetic inspiration is occasionally overlooked or even forgotten.
Poetry is a fascinating, intriguing and an inspiring genre and sometimes the poets behind the poems are sometimes even more captivating because poetry extends to other categories as it intersects into the blurred lines of multifaceted literature, film, visual art, photography, music and so on, making its way to dynamic international audiences.
Claude McKay
Claude McKay
Photo Courtesy: Flickr.com
Claude McKay is an important seminal figure with a significant history with both Jamaica and the United States and I was totally ignorant to his existence until I began this research project. He participated as a prominent literary figure in one of the most important, contemporary U.S. revitalization periods – The Harlem Renaissance.
McKay migrated to the states to pursue an education in his late teens. He first arrived in South Carolina and then New York. He lived in England for a brief period, even stayed in the Soviet Union for some time and it was in Chicago where he died. But it was Harlem where he lived. He had a profound interest in (left) communism. He’s alleged to even have been a member of the Communist Party. But he eventually changed his views and denounced his affiliations with them and wrote negatively about it in the 30’s. He is also alleged to have been one of the first (if not the first) black journalist in Britain. He was also a part of the radical revolutionary group the African Blood Brotherhood that was co-founded by Cyril Briggs. He published many books, articles and poems to which his writings inspired many writers after him such as James Baldwin and Richard Wright. Most recently an “unknown” manuscript of his was authenticated in 2012 titled Amiable With Big Teeth: A Novel of the Love Affair Between the Communists and the Poor Black Sheep of Harlem.
Harlem Shadows
I hear the halting footsteps of a lass
In Negro Harlem when the night lets fall
Its veil. I see the shapes of girls who pass
To bend and barter at desire’s call.
Ah, little dark girls who in slippered feet
Go prowling through the night from street to street!
Through the long night until the silver break
Of day the little gray feet know no rest;
Through the lone night until the last snow-flake
Has dropped from heaven upon the earth’s white breast,
The dusky, half-clad girls of tired feet
Are trudging, thinly shod, from street to street.
Ah, stern harsh world, that in the wretched way
Of poverty, dishonor and disgrace,
Has pushed the timid little feet of clay,
The sacred brown feet of my fallen race!
Ah, heart of me, the weary, weary feet
In Harlem wandering from street to street.
Mutabaruka
Mutabaruka Photo Courtesy: Jamaicanmusic.com
I was sitting down in my back yard in Jamaica, sipping tea one early Sunday morning. My cousin let the radio play, but only informative radio. I heard a man closing out what appeared to be his show, speaking anxiously about the politricks in America and his hopes for Jamaica. He then began to recite a poem and I sat still and listened very carefully to every single word.
“Mutabaruka”, my cousin said. He saw that I was intrigued with what he was saying. Everyone talks about politics, never about politricks. He spoke about the mishappenings with Dudus Coke and the misguided perception of who and what he did to Jamaica. He also spoke about American consumption of cheap goods being sent in barrels to Jamaica was problematic.
He was originally born Allan Hope in Rae Town Kingston. He converted from Catholicism to Rastafarianism sometime in the 70’s when the wave black awareness hit the Jamaican island and people like Louise Bennett were around to inspire him.
He performed “This Poem” on Russell Simmons’s Def Poetry Jam a few years ago, in 2007 and it was also the poem he used to close out his radio show that Sunday morning in Jamaica. He still performs today.
Dis Poem
dis poem
shall speak of the wretched sea
that washed ships to these shores
of mothers cryin for their young
swallowed up by the sea
dis poem shall say nothin new
dis poem shall speak of time
time unlimited time undefined
dis poem shall call names
names like lumumba kenyatta nkrumah
hannibal akenaton malcolm garvey
haile selassie
dis poem is vexed about apartheid rascism fascism
the klu klux klan riots in brixton atlanta
jim jones
dis poem is revoltin against 1st world 2nd world
3rd world division man made decision
dis poem is like all the rest
dis poem will not be amongst great literary works
will not be recited by poetry enthusiasts
will not be quoted by politicians nor men of religion
dis poem s knives bombs guns blood fire
blazin for freedom
yes dis poem is a drum
ashanti mau mau ibo yoruba nyahbingi warriors
uhuru uhuru
uhuru namibia
uhuru soweto
uhuru afrika
dis poem will not change things
dis poem need to be changed
dis poem is a rebirth of a people
arizin awaking understandin
dis poem speak is speakin have spoken
dis poem shall continue even when poets have stopped writin
dis poem shall survive u me it shall linger in history
in your mind
in time forever
dis poem is time only time will tell
dis poem is still not written
dis poem has no poet
dis poem is just a part of the story
his-story her-story our-story the story still untold
dis poem is now ringin talkin irritatin
makin u want to stop it
but dis poem will not stop
dis poem is long cannot be short
dis poem cannot be tamed cannot be blamed
the story is still not told about dis poem
dis poem is old new
dis poem was copied from the bible your prayer book
playboy magazine the n.y. times readers digest
the c.i.a. files the k.g.b. files
dis poem is no secret
dis poem shall be called boring stupid senseless
dis poem is watchin u tryin to make sense from dis poem
dis poem is messin up your brains
makin u want to stop listenin to dis poem
but u shall not stop listenin to dis poem
u need to know what will be said next in dis poem
dis poem shall disappoint u
because
dis poem is to be continued in your mind in your mind
in your mind your mind
Louise Simone Bennett Coverley
Louise Simone Bennett Photo Courtesy: Lasanabendele.com
She was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1919. She migrated to England in her 20’s. Poet, scholar, entertainer, she discussed culture and colonization a lot in her work. She is the inspiration behind Harry Belafonte’s famous song “Day O.” She wrote a lot of her poetry in the Jamaican patios dialect, which inspired many Jamaican poets after her to do so, such as Matabaruka, Lasana Bendele, Linton Kwesi to name a few. She passed away at 86 years of age in 2006 and her poems and legacy continues to live on.
Bans a Killin
So yuh a de man me hear bout!
Ah yuh dem seh dah teck
Whole heap a English oat seh dat
yuh gwine kill dialec!
Meck me get it straight, mas Charlie,
For me no quite understand –
Yuh gwine kill all English dialec
Or jus Jamaica one?
Ef yuh dah equal up wid English
Language, den wha meck
Yuh gwine go feel inferior when
It come to dialec?
Ef yuh cyaan sing ‘Linstead Market’
An ‘Water come a me yeye’
Yuh wi haffi tap sing ‘Auld lang syne’
An ‘Comin through de rye’.
Dah language weh yuh proud a,
Weh yuh honour an respec –
Po Mas Charlie, yuh no know se
Dat it spring from dialec!
Dat dem start fi try tun language
From de fourteen century –
Five hundred years gawn an dem got
More dialec dan we!
Yuh wi haffi kill de Lancashire,
De Yorkshire, de Cockney,
De broad Scotch and de Irish brogue
Before yuh start kill me!
Yuh wi haffi get de Oxford Book
A English Verse, an tear
Out Chaucer, Burns, Lady Grizelle
An plenty a Shakespeare!
When yuh done kill ‘wit’ an ‘humour’,
When yuh kill ‘variety’,
Yuh wi haffi fine a way fi kill
Originality!
An mine how yuh dah read dem English
Book deh pon yuh shelf,
For ef yuh drop a ‘h’ yuh mighta
Haffi kill yuhself
Velma Pollard
Velma Pollard
Photo Courtesy: Jamaica Gleaner
Born also in Kingston, Jamaica, Velma Pollard is a successful poet who reached an international platform through her work and teachings. She also writes fiction and studies of language. She taught in the US, as well as Trinidad, Guyana, and worked as the Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica.
Here is a poem from “Leaving Traces” a collection of poems published recently in March of 2008.
CONFESSIONS OF A SON
My father lost me
somewhere between
the smell of leather
shoes and the enchantment of untying laces
Waiting to cross swords
with the tyrant
who would cow her
I man watched
hovering over
Mother
(I four feet high)
standing on tiptoe
Half century later
still I do not know
if culture curbed concern
or if he loved less
than he needed love
I store for her
affection without question
for him respect
with unlove
waiting for compassion
SteceyAnn Chin
StaceyAnn Chin
StaceyAnn Chin is a popular poet from Jamaica based in NYC. She is mostly known for her stance on LGTBQ issues and her struggle living openly as an lesbian in Jamaica and more recently giving birth to a child and living as a single lesbian mother. She’s gradually crossed over into mainstream as she too has performed on Def Poetry Jam. She has also made appearances on Oprah, as well as publication features in the Huffington Post and more. She speaks to a lot of people through her poetry who struggle with homosexuality in the Caribbean and places where it’s socially unacceptable and practically objected on a whole by society paired with government.
All Oppression Is Connected
Being queer has no bearing on race
or class
or creed
my white publicist said
true love is never affected by color
or country
or the carnal need for cash
I curb the flashes of me crashing across the table
to knock his blond skin
from Manhattan
to Montego Bay to witness
the bloody beatings of beautiful brown boys
accused of the homosexual crime of buggery
amidst the new fangled fallacies
of sexual and racial freedom for all
these under-informed
self-congratulating
pseudo-intellectual utterances
reflect how apolitical the left has become
I don’t know why
but the term lesbian just seems so
confrontational to me
why can’t you people just say you date
other people?
Again I say nothing
tongue and courage tied with fear
I am at once livid
ashamed and paralyzed
by the neo-conservatism
breeding malicious amongst us
Gay
Lesbian
Bisexual
Transgender
Ally
Questioning
Two spirit
Non-gender conforming—every year we add a new letter
our community is happily expanding beyond the scope
of the dream stonewall sparked within us
yet everyday
I become more afraid to say black
or lesbian
or woman—everyday
under the pretense of unity I swallow something I should have said
about the epidemic of AIDS in Africa
or the violence against teenage-girls in East New York
or the mortality rate of young boys on the south-side of Chicago
even in friendly conversation
I get the bell hooks-ian urge
to kill mother-fuckers who say stupid shit to me
all day
bitter branches of things I cannot say out loud
sprout deviant from my neck
fuck you-you-fucking-racist-sexist-turd
fuck you for wanting to talk about homophobia
while you exploit the desperation of undocumented immigrants
to clean your hallways
bathe your children and cook your dinner
for less than you and I spend on our tax deductible lunch!
I want to scream
all oppression is connected you dick!
at the heart of every radical action in history
stood the dykes who were feminists
the anti-racists who were gay rights activists
the men who believed being vulnerable
could only make our community stronger
as the violence against us increases
where are the LGBT centers in those neighborhoods
where assaults occur most frequently?
as the tide of the Supreme Court changes
where are the LGBT marches
to support a woman’s right to an abortion?
what say we about health insurance
for those who can least afford it?
HIV/AIDS was once a reason for gay white men to act up
now your indifference spells the death
of straight black women
and imprisoned Latino boys
apparently
if the tragedy does not immediately impact you
you don’t give a fuck
offer a social ladder to those of us inclined to climb
and watch the bottom of a movement fall out
a revolution once pregnant with expectation
flounders
without direction the privileged and the plundered
grow listless
apathetic and individualistic no one knows
where to vote
or what to vote for anymore
the faces that represent us
have begun to look like the ones who used to burn crosses
and beat bulldaggers and fuck faggots up the ass
with loaded guns
the companies that sponsor our events
do not honor the way we live or love
or dance or pray
our life partnerships are deemed domestic
and the term marriage is reserved
for those unions sanctioned by a church controlled state
for all the landmarks we celebrate
we are still niggers
and faggots
and minstrel references
for jokes created on the funny pages of a heterosexual world
the horizons are changing
to keep pace with technology and policy alike
the LGBT manifesto has evolved into a corporate agenda
and outside that agenda
a woman is beaten every 12 seconds
every two minutes
a girl is raped somewhere in America
and while we stand here well-dressed and rejoicing
in India
in China
in South America a small child cuts the cloth
to construct you a new shirt
a new shoe
an old lifestyle held upright
by the engineered hunger and misuse of impoverished lives
gather round ye fags, dykes
trannies and all those in between
we are not simply at a political crossroad
we are buried knee deep in the quagmire
of a battle for our humanity
the powers that have always been
have already come for the Jew
the communist
and the trade unionist
the time to act is now!
Now! while there are still ways we can fight
Now! because the rights we have are still so very few
Now! because it is the right thing to do
Now! before you open the door to find
they have finally come
for you
MizzRebelution 