Review -- Mahogany Whispers

Lets admit it, Poetry Publication in Belize has gotten a bad rap over the years. We hear this one has a new collection and that one has a book launch and it rolls right off our backs. 'Vanity publishing', we say with sneer. Its not for us, we say. Its something for the author and his or her close friend and the artsy-fartsy crowd. Well, if you truly think that then you've been missing out on a lot.

There are gems in Belize. Its not just a catch phrase thought up by the tourism board. Well, maybe it is. Nitpicky, over-thinker that I am I hesitate to call Ritamae Hyde's “Mahogany Whispers” a gem. But, considering its the first collection of poems that the young university lecturer has published its not too far off. As an introduction to readers, the collection is very well put together. Reading through the pages we get a picture of a remarkable young woman; one who realizes her own beauty and the value of it. We see her falling in love and suffering heartbreak, simultaneously, both in the romantic sense and the conflicted sense one feels for ones nation. We see a woman enjoying the allure of herself, swimming comfortably in a world made up of her own skin, despite the oppinions of wider society, and more intimate family alike. And we see a woman who, despite grown up and continuing to live in the unquestionably urban south side of Belize City, has an obvious and deep rooted appreciation for nature, and for the ultimate origin: Africa. The book doesn't paint Hyde in the simple colors of political/social activist or ethnocentric intellectual, or even 'independent, modern woman.' Instead, we see a woman with depth, and a certain conflict of emotions that are endearing and familiar.

None of this takes into account Hyde's actual crafting of these poems. There's definitely a style here, one that is untainted by the homogeny that comes with 'classical' training. This is it alternating times a strength and a weakness. Indeed, among the most pleasurable or compelling poems were those that seemed the most personal. There, in poems about her family, herself, her upbringing, her personal hopes and fears, was the obvious gleam of something valuable. There was an energy put into those arrangements of words that strikes a chord with the reader.

In other instances, however, there was something missing; a certain lyrical or rhythmic quality that would have elevated her writing out of the realm of critical prose and made it equal parts cultural criticism and written aesthetic. This, of course, is only my opinion. In Hyde's 'The Perfect Poem', she lists her own criteria for the craft. Beauty is not among them. In fact, as the poem states in its opening stanza:

“The perfect poem

is not about standard lines,

rhymes or figures of speech

such as a hyperbole

or a simile.”

And indeed, Hyde seems to avoid these traditional poetic tools like the plague. In that sense, perhaps she achieves her goal in her own writing. In my opinion, however, while these elements do not make the poem, they certainly have their place. Reading through this collection of poems, I find myself missing these old friends.

And yet, I read through the entire thing in one sitting. This is unprecedented for me, whether reading Belizean writers or any other. Usually I take poetry books as pre-packaged snacks to supplement my literary diet. It had less to do with the contents of the book; 74 pages, including foreword and preface. It was actually the magic of the production. I usually grimace at authors putting themselves on their book covers. To me its usually another blow for the 'Vanity Publishing' argument. In this case, however, I have to admit I was impressed. Thanks to visual Artist Jahmai Trapp (jahmai.deviantart.com) the cover is actually a compelling glimpse of the woman who's adorned the pages inside. And the pages themselves add to the books 'pick me up' quality. I'll kindly ask you to wash and thoroughly dry your hands before you pick up my copy, thank you. No cheap copy-paper here. The pages are just soft enough to encourage your fingertips to take their time with the corners, but firm enough to actually stand up to a good leafing through. Even better, they're not white, but slightly yellowed, giving them a nice, classical look. The font is simple, which is good. Anything too elaborate would be a distraction in this case. What's more, the font and positioning remain consistent throughout, though in the few cases of poems that are only a few lines long, this does make the pages seem empty. I wonder how much of Hyde's input went into the production of the book. Did she, as an avid reader, have an idea of what she wanted? Or did the publishers (Ramos Publishing) or printers (Print Belize Limited) take it upon themselves to create something so elegant?

I won't try to predict where 'Mahogany Whispers' will stand when in comes to the future of Belizean Poetry. Of course, its the goal of every author to create something that will last, will be remembered, and will impact their audience, and their peers. Its too early to tell if Ritamae Hyde has done that in her first publication. I do know this, however. The book won't be spending too much time on my bookshelf. Every time I consider an existing or future Belizean publication, by Belizean writers, publishers, and printers, I'll be setting it beside this one for comparison. That is to say, I'd like to see more books like this one. And while I still wouldn't call it 'perfect' or 'a gem', I think 'exemplary' is nice enough, and true enough, description.

No Talking on a Sunday Morning

"Morning."  I said.

"Good Morning!" She replied more cheerfully.  Always more cheerfully.

"What are you up to?"

"Watching television.  A show about hoarders.  About to have breakfast.  What are you up to?"

"Reading.  Sleeping.  Rinse & Repeat.  Kind of lonely but I've had my fill of social interaction."

There's something that happens when you're in a serious, long term relationship.  You become...serious.  You become comfortable.  Perhaps too comfortable in some cases, but in most cases its a phenomenon in which only the best of circumstances can lead to; the right alignments of moon and stars, the proper balance of humors, just the ordinate number of clouds in the sky.  And its the things that you can't recreate, of course, that you miss most.  Its those pangs which twist hardest in that chamber of mind and soul where desire is housed.

I do miss her still.  Oh god, do I miss her.  Last week a friend of min, a certain diminutive young lady with curly hair the colour of breathed-upon embers, was in my kitchen.  She was cooking.  Well, she was making macaroni and cheese; apply whichever verb to that you wish.  And, in the process of looking for something she managed to get a fingertip on the bottom of the high locker and, unable to reach any higher, pried the locker open and stepped back, nearly across the room, looking for some spice or the other and muttering curse words to herself.  The likeness; not of the person but the situation; was uncanny.  I nearly wept. 

Days like today would go unscripted, but perfectly orchestrated.  I've already made my omelette.  As usual it was more than any one person should eat in the morning.  If two were to share it...well.  There's no helping that now, is there?  And then, I turned the television on and without even changing the channel, turned it off.  I turned on the radio and, without really listening to anything, turned it off.  At the end of my restlessness I went to fetch the light book. (I've gotten into the habit of reading two books at a time: One heavy; 'The Black Jacobins' in this case, and one light; Diane Setterfield's 'The Thirteenth Tale.)  I'm only a few chapters from the end, the remaining pages gathered together look about the width of a church hymnal.  I began to read, then fell asleep.  When i woke up, I began reading, and fell asleep.  There was no smell of shampoo and body butter to wake me.  No tingle of hair in my nose or on my cheek.  And no warmth.  At around the third bout of waking I went to fetch my heavy sweater, an over-sized hoody, and an extra pillow.  The pillow I held close to me, close to my chest.  The sweater made it seem as though the thing had warm blood flowing through it; had a pulse and a furnace of life somewhere in its center.  If I could have figured out a way to have it rise and fall in a rhythm matching, but not quite in sync, with my own, then perhaps I wouldn't have thought my next thought.

And that thought was: How sad you must look?  A grown man spooning a pillow, burying his face into it in between burying his face in pages, and an equally sad looking dog nestled in the crook of his knees.  If someone were to come bursting through the front door this very second, what would you do?  How would you justify this?  Have you no shame sir?

But I did not have any shame.  Only want and a nerve wracking sort of nostalgia.  The house was quiet, except for the occasional passing traffic, and I was warm.  And comfortable.  But...it was only a pillow.  I was still lonely.  I would have loved to hear someone else gasp when the uncertainty first cropped up.  I would have liked to laugh quietly while I wiped the tears off of someone's face, and they off mine, before we both turned the page.  I would have liked someone to be there.  Not someone to talk to.  Not someone to frolic with.  Just be there.

I suppose I could have called someone.  But then, I suppose I couldn't.  Who would i call? 

"This is really weird." My cousin Delsia would say, to which I would have to agree and wonder how it was I managed to convince her to let me hold her that close to begin with.  Then, invariably, the conversation would turn to something much too practical for a Sunday morning.

"Aw, are you crying because he found his family?" Meghann would say in a tone that made her sound sweet and compassionate.  I'd nod my head meekly and she would frown and reply dryly "That's so gay."

Jamira would never sit still long enough.  Maria would want to talk about her boyfriend.  Anyone else would want to talk.  Talk, talk, talk. 

'I haven't seen you in so long.  Lets catch up!' 

'He broke my heart.  Why couldn't I have found someone like you?'

'Is this all we're going to do today?'

'Where'd you get this sweater?  Can I have it?'

'Its too quiet in here.'

'What is this?  A futon?'

'Something's poking me in my back'

'My feet are cold.'

There's no talking in the serious, long-term relationship.  When your feet get cold, you wrap them among the legs of your partner.  You get comfortable.  You are comfortable.  You are free to simply be there.  There's no need for the chase.  Not today at least.  Not on a Sunday.  You have your mate.  She's gripped close to your ribs.  Her fingers are waiting at the corners of the page because she knows you read slightly slower than she does.  There's no talking.  You kiss her neck, and she turns the page.

There was one I could reach out to, of course.  But...She's still a danger in my mind.  Missing one is bad enough.  Missing two...can that even be done?  Should it?  Perhaps I need to sleep on it.

Nuff Respect

Dear friend

 

Following a short meeting between representatives of BEMA and Members and officers of Hackney Council, an in principle agreement has been reached that the name of the new facility will carry the name of CLR James Library as per our campaign demand. A formal statement will follow shortly. Many thanks to the thousands who have supported our successful campaign online and in other ways.

 

Bema will be playing an ongoing role in the development of a permanent CLR James exhibition at the new library as well as the establishment of an annual event commemorating his life and work.

 

Ngoma Bishop & Andrea Enisuoh   

Campaign co-ordinators

 

 

http://www.bemanetwork.org.uk/

Easter Eggs

You cannot teach a man anything.  You can only help him discover it within himself. --Galileo

I only just started reading The Black Jacobins, devouring the foreword, introduction, prologue and first chapter over the weekend.  I'd had the book in my house for at least eight years now.  My mother's copy, a valued copy if the presence of her signature on several random pages is any indication.  She wanted to ensure that no one ever got away with stealing it, or at least pricked their conscience if they did.  I never saw the use of it.  The cover was impressive.  The dark skinned man in Victorian style refinements spoke to an underdeveloped black pride within me every time I saw it.  But my mind, up until now, was not prepared to take on the the tiresome (as I saw it) task of actually reading it.  Its a matter of maturity.  I had to wait until now.  Until I was ready.  And even so, I didn't know I was ready.  I simply couldn't find the book I'd started reading in time to pack it for the trip to Flores, and instead decided to grab it off the shelf, just to see what it was all about.  When I opened it and started reading about C.L.R. James, and about his ideas, and about Haiti, I realized that it was time.  Had I read it at any point before now, before those very same thoughts came to life in the cultivated garden of my own mind, I wouldn't have really cared about what it had to say.  I wouldn't be sitting in my office, as I am now, with the presence of the book in my messenger bag glowing like a bright beacon in the back of my mind.  I wouldn't have the appreciation and hunger for it that I have now had it been forced upon me in high school.  If I had read it at any point before now, I wouldn't give a rats ass who C.L.R. James was.

This is a universal thing.  Perhaps it might be a generational peculiarity, but I doubt it.  While my upbringing has instilled within me an unconditional respect for my elders, my own self-education efforts actually revolve around breaking down those things that were instilled in me, and not taken on by my own volition.  Also, I've come to learn that all things have conditions.  To this end I can say that previous generations were no more enlightened or prone to enlightenment than my own.  Those who came before me were no more or no less hungry for knowledge than I am.  However, perhaps they had more barriers to that knowledge and in their youth, they had just the same amount of rebellion as I do.  So while I have the information at my fingertips, acquiring it isn't as exciting as it was back then. 

It's just a theory. 

But things work a little differently now.  Now we have to present knowledge like we do Easter-eggs: Paint them conspicuously, and hide them in plain sight.  For instance, there is a street in Harlem, a boulevard actually, named Adam Clayton Powell Jr Boulevard.  Navigating Harlem, you're main allies are the broad bordering streets named after Black heroes and famous personalities.  Malcom X Boulevard.  Frederick Douglass Blvd.  Martin Luther King Boulevard.  Adam Clayton Powell Jr Boulevard?

"Hey man, Who's Clayton Powell?"  I asked one of the neighborhood guys that worked at the Hostel.  He was younger than I was, but just barely.  A handsome guy who was just growing his dreads and 'trying' to be vegetarian.  They were either the first, struggling signs of someone seeking some kind of enlightenment, or a complete poseur.  He admitted that he didn't know, and the pretty Puerto Rican girl who worked at the front desk made a disgusted sound and elbowed him, saying "Don't you live around here?"

"I live ten blocks that way!" he retorted, pointing in the direction of the rest of Manhattan.
"So?"  She replied.  "You're supposed to know this stuff."
"Why, cause I'm black?" He asked sardonically.
"Yeah!"  She said, sounding perplexed that he even had to ask.

The next day he brought me a pamphlet about the heroes the streets were named after, and had highlighted The Reverend Adam Clayton Powel Jr., first African American elected to congress.  It may be that he'd just missed learning about Adam Clayton Powel Jr. in class.  He might have matriculated just before it was decided to add that information to the public school curriculum.  Its also possible that former senator Powell was right there in his history books, but a congressman who, among other accomplishments, dined with a contingent of black constituents in the 'Whites Only' House restaurant and passed a record number of bills in a single session of congress, doesn't shine as brightly beside his Harlem Boulevard contemporaries.  "If the Law is wrong, change the Law" perhaps doesn't resonate in the heart as much as "By any means necessary." or the 'I have a dream.' speech.  But that Easter-egg was hidden on a street walked my thousands each day, and painted brighter than the grey of the city.  All it required, all it still requires, is for someone to point it out, and let young, hungry curiosity handle the rest.

And if there was no Adam Clayton Powell jr Boulevard?  If it were forever to be called ' 7th Avenue'?  Then obviously it would be just another gilded street in an increasingly gentrified Harlem.  And with no knowledge of the true history of the neighborhood, why would anyone want to stay somewhere they're not wanted?  The argument against gentrification and the tools for combating it is another conversation all its own.  But we are talking about knowledge, access to knowledge, and the drive to educate oneself.  Again, I've only made it through the preliminary text and the first chapter, but being a long time fan of all kinds of narratives, I can tell that its these very same factors on which the plot of this story; the liberation of Saint Domingue, and the creation of Haiti; hinges.  The same factors, perhaps, presented the Easter egg of Marxism to James, and inseminated within him the idea to share history to the Caribbean and Black Communities.  The same factors that now lead me to explore, stumble upon, and learn from James, his writing, and the history of the region.  And if there were, perhaps, a library in a predominantly black neighborhood somewhere that, all of a sudden, was no longer called the CLR James Library?  Then we will be left with those still waiting to stumble over brightly coloured enlightenment hidden in plain sight, and all we'll be able to tell them is: 'It used to be there.  But now its not.'

---

Inspired by: CRB • Antilles • Transformative reading
Please sign: Save CLR James Library

What have I learned today?

"Silence is not a natural environment for stories. They need words. Without them they grow pale, sicken and die. And then they haunt you."

From The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

Full disclosure from here on out. Can't stand to be haunted. Besides, who's reading that would be offended?

Besides. I get to be selfish. At least here. This...is for me.

Anancy Song & Ask me how my weekend went

"Anancy Song" by Geoffrey Philp

Which reminds me that I have yet to read Neil Gaiman's 'Nancy Boys'. And which reminds me that I am a child of the Caribbean and that I have to hold on to that. A lot of people have this misconception that Anansi's adventures are all about deceipt and opportunism when really, Anansi teaches us what we've needed to know since civilization opened its eyes: How to Survive. And how to do so using nothing more than your intellect, and what you have at hand.

I don't know why I'm so maudlin. Technically, i had a pretty great weekend. I read at the closing of Book Week, an event entitled 'Literary Night'. Interestingly enough I was...possibly one of two sane, non-eccentric writers in the room. Though, I hold myself slightly to blame for that perception. I'm almost certain that 'River of Fire' was sitting in the crowd debating whether or not he should read his 'Three things thrive in the darkness: Snakes, Scorpions, and Battymen' poem when, out of the blue, he hears the fellow at the mic describing Sea Hag nipples and wet tongues circling red lips. I think that's the moment he decided 'This seems like a crowd I can whip out the battyman material in front of'!

But all in all it was well received, I think. The crowd had me nervous at first. I got through the first lines of 'The Fortunate End of Jonas Black' and kept thinking 'this is way too corny to be taken seriously.' There were murmurs at the mention of mermaids, tittering as I went through several paragraphs describing their breasts (What else would you describe on a mermaid?), but by the time I got to poor Jona's actual descent into death there was rapt silence.

'I Could Call you Brother' was a bit better received, though I'm not sure people got that first stanza (It was a dog in the first draft. Now its a horse. Point is, though, its an animal, then a man.) And 'Dreaming of Flying' got me a crowd of 'Aww's. So, good for me! I just had to sit through the crazy a bit longer. Not too bad with Jon and Sean there to make me want to guffaw every eight minutes.

Lets see...what else?

Women are generally confusing. That doesn't change. I consider making grand gestures. Then...I consider whether or not it would even be worth it. What if i did sweep her off her feet? She'd still be the girl who drunk dials exes on her birthday. But maybe that's a good thing. Is anybody going to Drunk dial me on their birthday this year?

Ah. That's why I'm maudlin.

Book Lists

[January, 2009 - Giving myself plenty of time to buy gifts. All of these were chosen using What Should I Read Next]

For Erica

"Staying Dead" - Laura Anne Gillman
"Fire Me Up: An A isling Grey, Guardian Novel" - Katie Macalister (Book 2)
"You Slay Me" (Book 1)
"Light My Fire" (Book 3)

For Merri

"Asleep" - Banana Yoshimoto
"The Nature of Water and Air" - Regina McBride
"Homeland and other Stories" Barbara Kingsolver
"Pope Joan" - Donna Woolfolk Cross
"The Woman Warrior" - Maxine Kingston

For Mom

"Love Medicine" - Lousie Erdrich
"Homeland and other Stories."
"The Woman Warrior"
"The Women of Brewster Place" - Gloria Naylor
"Ceremony" - Lelsie Marmon Silko
"Saint Maybe" - Anne Tyler