Arts for the 21st Century

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A Reminiscence from the Archives:

Vol. 10, No. 38, Pages 68–72 (January–June 1964)

A Public Address from the Archives:

Vol. 14, No. 55, Pages 121–124, (July–December 1972)

Address at the Graduation Ceremony at the Cave Hill Campus, the University of the West Indies, Barbados, on 1st February, 1972

(In memory of Yarico, a young

Amerindian woman sold by her white lover,

Inkle, to a slave owner in Barbados)

 

 

Under a cold half-moon

you cross the road to gaze again

at your reflection in the nearby pond

 

 “Where is my body?

It is an honor to contribute to Bim: Arts for the 21st Century, a journal deeply rooted in the Caribbean, where the legacies of enslavement continue to shape our collective consciousness.

My sweet boy

As you grow

 

Floating in your mother’s

Swelling Sea-belly

 

As my soul swells

With this new feeling

Blossoming in my heart

 

Like the July-tree

Humming into red twilight

 

Do you lie alone?

Also in your empty bed,

That stretches to the hovering horizon?

 

Do you lie alone?

Also under that hollow roof

That catches the silent singing

Of the melancholy stars?

 

And, outside your window,

On our mighty chariot

The dancing Balaou

We set out merrily

A motley crew

 

For in the Caribbean

We need to keep

Protected our kin

Of that wondrous deep

 

So we looked for the thrones

The latest UN Climate Change Conference held in Baku (COP29) resulted in an agreement to commit US$300 billion per year in “climate finance” from developed to developing nations by 2035.

Dearly beloved, we are all gathered here today to witness the sad passing of our beloved matriarch, the late, Great, Salt Pond. She has nourished and cherished us along the banks of her salty waters for as long as there have been people living on this silted shore.

Translated from the Spanish by Thomas Rothe

In Carolina

before the housing developments

when the river would drown people

in a breeze 

Translated from the Spanish by Thomas Rothe

In Carolina

before the housing developments

when the river would drown people

in a breeze

and amanú[1] was no extraordinary herb.

In Carolina

A Conference Report from the Archives:

Vol. 12, No. 46, Pages 80–83 (January–June 1968)

A Poem from the Archives:

Vol. 12, No. 46, Pages 103–-4 (January–June 1968)

 

Two Cartoons with Captions

 

(1)

 

Four years ago

In this knot of a village outside the university

She was in residence.

take for instance—

three days ago

 before-day mawnin”

it was as though

your presence

pass through

between where

i was sitting

on the verandah

thinking it was you

i looked around

Market was empty today

More sellers than buyers

This year drought meant

No rain for months until

Sudden heavy showers

 

I spent all day talking

On my phone to a machine

I was on the receiving end

Countless voice message recordings

(Reconnecting Caribbean Links)

 

 

On a walkabout,

Through New Kingston,

From Caribbean Avenue

Along Antigua Avenue, Knutsford Boulevard,

To Barbados Avenue, Dominica Drive, Grenada Cresent,

Her hands in the suds,

washing dirty dishes,

as his tiny fingers tug

at the dressed-up frame—

 

resurrecting

 

her thoughts of his cooing

in a secondhand blankie.

Now, at his toddler-aged joy from

tiz zwazo is not

a yellow bird

she don’t belong

choucoune yes

but not she

 

neither

canaries

but for mutual

expendability

 

the yellow

shouldered

grass quit does

 

and the beautiful