MAHANAIM notes

"spiral" - for Pat C., in memory

2012-02-08T21:51:00.000-04:00

spiral

for Pat C. - in memory

we return, never the same point,

that’s gone, that’s passed

but a familiar conjunction,

place, person, angled commemoration

unsettling déjà vu—

from the hours’ spiraling edge, I call you

to mind, to heart, to touch ghosts

in the stairwell, serious roots thrusting

us around today, tomorrow

to come here again yesterday, another furrow

another spiral turning up the past.

Heart's rooms

2011-12-22T14:14:00.000-04:00

“My heart holds rooms”

My heart holds rooms I’ve never entered

doors concealed, secret entrances

sudden corners turning to knobs without keys —

O, some chambers I know familiar

favourite window seats, corner desks, comfort stations

boudoirs of great pleasure

and sacred crypts, twilight zones, forbidding cells

dread dungeons deep under dreams—

but I’ve also danced and flown through octagonal halls, their slanting light

and played the cantor down glass staircases—

but those other places, the guessed at

the undiscovered, the unexplored

the mysteries of the curious heart—

are they the promised portals

to the mansions of His Father’s House?

Photo "Personal" (c) John Robert Lee

The Passion and Resurrection Canticles - celebrating Easter 2011 - for Charles Cadet

2011-04-21T14:21:00.002-04:00

Prologue: The Alabaster Flask

Over the bowed Head, the anointing oil of nard

pours from Mary’s broken alabaster flask—

certainly, she filled that room with the fragrant adoration of her Lord;

certainly, even then, some grudged Him that embalming, with their indignant jealousy—

you heard it in the thief’s voice, sneering at the poor;

and the Master, raising His burial, raising her memorial, raises their approaching loss,

beyond the maddening fragrance of the pure

ointment. But the bedeviled thief rose in envy, and over Christ, his bottled hatred broke.

Caiaphas

“Who is this, this peasant prophet, wailing shoah on the city?

What is this riot of rags and branches down the thoroughfare?

And why this bacchanal of blasphemy resurrecting from Bethany?

Which Balak sends this Balaam’s foal to mock Messiah?

Where next this din of thieves, this unwashed brood of publicans?

Will they impale the merchants and the bankers and the priests on their hosannas

when they’ve stormed the precincts of the porch?

While their ambitious carpenter withers, as usual, in some forgotten Arimathean sepulchre?”

Berith

Bitter herbs, bread unleavened, wine, and lamb slain between the two evenings—

do the twelve comprehend they are settling the last rites of Exodus, sipping the watered dregs of that final Pascha?

And beyond fiction, in the Servant’s holy hands, the betraying heel. And the flat-footed denials. And the splayed doubts. And other such leavenings.

Out of the common dish comes the separating sop to deepen their perplexity.

So there, above some obscure alley in His City, all our wretched story— Eden, Sinai, Golgotha—

is passed over, for His Bread, His Wine, His bitter Tree.

Later still, such talk under the brooding night! Then prayer, a hymn,

and over the Kidron, into Gethsemane.

Gethsemane

What commenced in the other garden begins to end here,

in the shadow of an olive mill by a black brook.

“Behold, We have become like one of them, to bear

their sorrows and their griefs.” Let the wheel break

this Fruit on every tooth and tread. Bruise

the Seed under the trampling heel of the Bull

of Bashan. Pour the sweating barrel

of this agony into the cupping palms of God.

Ecce Homo

“O Galilean, robed in purple, crowned with thorns,

is this Your estate? Is this Your kingship,

reduced to the scourge of their envy and spit? God born

of man, behold Your truth: silver kisses treacherous palms, shape-shifters

rend their costumes at cock-crow, the Pavement is soiled

by the desolation of Your bloody Purity. Look Carpenter,

is Caesar not adored, is Barabbas not preferred?

See, Holy Fool, You and Your Jews, I wash my hands of You!”

Friday

They leave Him nothing but irreducible nakedness—

no fig-leaf girdle, no swaddling cloth, no seamless tunic;

they impale the battered Scarecrow on the Skull’s brow; their final curses

perforate the darkening skin of the sun; His distending knuckles

claw the veil of the God-forsaken air; yet, even now,

He thirsts only for the sour wine at the end of the hyssop branch; stricken

between earth and heaven, His heart opens to a new covenant,

and pours its blood and water on the Father’s reconciling Hands.

Pieta of Joseph of Arimathea

“He was all scattered, empty-limbed, exhausted, gone,

when I gathered Him off the stake. O my Son,

my Son! I was more Your son than You were mine,

Your tentative disciple, peeping out the Council’s shutters for Your Kingdom.

O my wounded King! Holy, Holy, Holy Child! O my dear,bruised Prince!

O Father, receive Him in our poor linen, swathing His torn

flesh. May these paltry spices herald His approach

to Heaven’s Throne. O LORD, give this Your Servant rest in Your eternal Rock.”

II.

Risen Man

“Have you ever shaken hands with a man who was dead?

Have you ever looked into the laughing eyes of a man who beat death?

Have you ever sat next to such a one and shared his salt bread?

Friend, do you know the incomparable odiferousness of the breath

of a resurrected man? Friend, have you been led in Zion’s psalms

by a voice that scattered the doomed wealth

of Satan’s domains? Stranger, I have known the encompassing arms

of such entombing and embalming Grace.”

ii.

O Lord Christ, that we might,

with hearts' mouths hushed, see You

take the backyard-oven bread

You share with us, see Your hands

raise that plump loaf up into

this day's lavender end,

know with burning, blessed

sight, it's our Master bends

and breaks those dry-crust ends

of breasts of Paix-Bouche bread.

"In Caravaggio's ikon"

In Caravaggio’s ikon of Thomas seeing Christ
all eyes are locked to the doubter’s firm finger
poking around the torn flesh, under

the strong hand of the Carpenter. Thomas,
Apostle to our secular, mocking, murderous
new age, meeting his worst-case scenario

with the firm grit of flesh under his thumb
that index of incarnation— incarnation, Immanuel
God is with us — under the impossible rubble

as we claw at the unimaginable earthfall, Immanuel—
over the body of someone’s son fallen in crossfire
in shrieking shadowlands of betrayal

through terminal disorientation of disease, Immanuel.
Because that wound is real, the death was certain
here, beyond reason, beyond the apocalypse

of private disasters, is something else
is Life beyond life, beyond heartbreak
beyond assassination, beyond the tremblor

at 3 in the afternoon, beyond the amnesiac cancer of the mind.
Here, under our finger, is faith, here is hope,
and He asks us, against the brutal heel on the locked door

the harsh fist of imploding earth
the shroud covered bier—
“Love one another.”

Illustrations:

Georges Rouault. Head of Christ, c.1937.
Hieronymus Bosch. Passion of Christ, c.1513.
Andrea del Sarto. Detail, The Last Supper, 1527.
William Brassey Hole. Gethsemane.
Caravaggio. Christ at column, 1607.
Guido Rocha. The tortured Christ (sculpture), 1975.
Michaelangelo. Piéta, 1498-1499.
Caravaggio. Supper at Emmaus, 1606.

9. Caravaggio.The Incredulity of St. Thomas, 1602.

10. John Robert Lee. Crown. (photo of carving by J.Thelemaque), 2006.

All poems © John Robert Lee, 2011

These poems form part of the collections “Canticles” Easter, 2007, “elemental”, 2008, and new work.

ImageWord - poems inspired by photographs and art

2011-04-08T09:45:00.000-04:00

Over the years I have written poems inspired by photographs and art. I have posted some of these here in earlier posts. I thought I would gather a few and post them as one ImageWord experience. Have a look.

The Prodigal by Rembrandt, 1662

Return of the prodigal

After the reggae hard-beat, the Haitian guitars and the delicate mazouk,
the unattainable sloe-eyed dancers, sips from forbidden chalices,
and the inevitable descent to the wood-and-zinc
shack—you came to count your losses,
exhume, with some embarrassment, his unread letters,
raise, to your startled heart, his shameless wishes—

then, giving up your feet and hands to love’s caressing fetters,
you arrived again in the familiar yard, to the evening’s last trumpet.

Photo by (c) Leo Spa St. Helene (1927 - 1988), St. Lucian photographer

Photosnap

In the photograph she stands well braced
in the doorway of the shack: her back is placed

upright firm against one frame, the left arm reaches across the open door
to hold the other frame. Standing as she does, her feet are wedged on the floor’s

corner in front of her. That left arm, those locked feet, that braced back,
block the entrance. He is more relaxed: facing her, no lack

of confidence, standing outside the shop, left elbow on the window sill,
right leg nearer us, rod-firm, left leg angled at the knee toward her; the sharp felt-hat fills

his profile with shadow, so we don’t have a face; a fruit in his hands. So,
Mam, why so firmly angled? Your posture is saying no

entry, but aren’t you (unsmiling, holding tight on the door jambs,
anchoring the open door at your back, securing the white painted borders,) praying
hard against those well-suited charms—

and the sign painted above your head on the shack concurs—

“GOD PROMISE TO HELP”?

Photo (c) Alley Shmael

Sphinxe

Don’t be distracted by the parted thighs
the elbow folding in a model’s pose
the casual chemise and slipping skirt—

do you dare to enter the navel of her world
the enigmatic neither come nor go of her watching
your every moving thought

to know her tracks and valleys and gardens
and coal-pits, her songs and secret places
her white yam and salt fish

and all the rest of her life in Babonneau hamlets
that this alluring sphinxe
now guards?

The incredulity of St. Thomas. Caravaggio, 1602

In Caravaggio's ikon

In Caravaggio’s ikon of Thomas seeing Christ
all eyes are locked to the doubter’s firm finger
poking around the torn flesh, under

the strong hand of the Carpenter. Thomas,
Apostle to our secular, mocking, murderous
new age, meeting his worst-case scenario

with the firm grit of flesh under his thumb
that index of incarnation— incarnation, Immanuel
God is with us — under the impossible rubble

as we claw at the unimaginable earthfall, Immanuel—
over the body of someone’s son fallen in crossfire
in shrieking shadowlands of betrayal

through terminal disorientation of disease, Immanuel.
Because that wound is real, the death was certain
here, beyond reason, beyond the apocalypse

of private disasters, is something else
is Life beyond life, beyond heartbreak
beyond assassination, beyond the tremblor

at 3 in the afternoon, beyond the amnesiac cancer of the mind.
Here, under our finger, is faith, here is hope,
and He asks us, against the brutal heel on the locked door

the harsh fist of imploding earth
the shroud covered bier—
“Love one another.”

All poems (c) John Robert Lee

Photosnap

2011-04-04T12:54:00.001-04:00

Photosnap

In the photograph she stands well braced

in the doorway of the shack: her back is placed

upright firm against one frame, the left arm reaches across the open door

to hold the other frame. Standing as she does, her feet are wedged on the floor’s

corner in front of her. That left arm, those locked feet, that braced back,

block the entrance. He is more relaxed: facing her, no lack

of confidence, standing outside the shop, left elbow on the window sill,

right leg nearer us, rod-firm, left leg angled at the knee toward her; the sharp felt-hat fills

his profile with shadow, so we don’t have a face; a fruit in his hands. So,

Mam, why so firmly angled? Your posture is saying no

entry, but aren’t you (unsmiling, holding tight on the door jambs,

anchoring the open door at your back, securing the white painted borders,) praying

hard against those well-suited charms—

and the sign painted above your head on the shack concurs—

“GOD PROMISE TO HELP”?

(c) John Robert Lee

Maman

2011-04-01T10:30:00.003-04:00

Did you find him, maman, the old man,

Or was it the grandchild left in your care for the day,

Or, in the catastrophe behind you,

The daughter who was setting your supper,

Or perhaps your friend, having a Dominican ponche with you?

Your long arms, maman, are bathed in the white dust of disastrous city-fall,

Your fingers are exhausted from their frantic and futile search for bones,

For hair, for a belt or a bodice,

For a baby, a baby who was impossibly there,

Gurgling at her spoon

Teasing your heart,

And you singing a lullaby, “Haiti Cherie”

Haiti beloved, beloved child,

Gone child, gone with the walls, the debris, the tranblanterre and the lavalas,

Gone from your arms, from your keening, scrabbling fingers

Despairing under block, under board, under broken back

And the child disparu, taken —

Or was it your friend from Cap Haitien,

Or the daughter who shared your name,

Or the old man — companion of your days,

Comrade of sleepless hours, keeper of your young heart

Comforter of those fallen breasts

Fallen under your torn chemise

Fallen with the roofs and the windows and the President’s house

Fallen with the broken routes of Port-au-Prince

Fallen and forlorn, Haiti Cherie?

"Basket of prayers"

2011-02-22T11:51:00.000-04:00

Basket of prayers

A hymn of offering to God

My heart, O God, my heart

Enters now the Holy Place,

Where You wait with open arms

To meet me face to face.

My heart, O Lord, my eager heart

Bows low before Your Throne,

And trembles Lord to hear You start

To speak to me alone.

My heart, O God, my grateful heart

I offer now to You

A basket of my prayers;

To You beloved Lord,

A basket full of tears

That You alone have wiped away;

A basket full of fears

That You alone have cast afar;

A basket full of hurts

That You alone have healed;

A basket full of hope

That You alone have blessed me with;

A basket full of joy

That Calvary earned for me;

A basket full of prayers,

A basket, Lord, that’s full of praise,

A basket Lord, that’s full of praise,

My heart, O Lord, I give to You,

A basket full of praise.

"Kingdom Poets (a blog by D.S. Martin)" of Canada

2011-02-09T09:37:00.000-04:00

I've just come across a great blog that features Christian writers. It's called "Kingdom Poets" and is produced by poet D.S. Martin of Ontario, Canada. His blog is a veritable anthology of great Christian writing, from the past and into our contemporary literature. Indeed a work of love and dedication. Martin writes short notes to accompany each blog entry alongside an excerpt from the writers' work. This provides a useful introduction, especially to writers we have not heard of. He is the author of several collections including Poiema, a winner of the 2009 Canadian Christian Writing Awards. He also contributes articles on poetry to several well-known magazines, like Books and Culture.
With his permission, I share his note on Robert Cording, contemporary writer, and one of Cording's poems.

"Robert Cording is an award-winning, contemporary poet living in Connecticut, and teaching English and creative writing at College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts. He has five poetry books to his credit, the most recent being Common Life (CavanKerry Press). He tends to write from a faith point-of-view but often in a way that doesn’t primarily focus on the spiritual.

When I asked Robert Cording about the relationship between his role as a poet, and that of a Christian, he referred me to something he had said when his book Against Consolation received the Arlen Myer Prize. He'd said: "My task of late has been to evoke what I would call the primordial intuitions of Christianity. What are they?—that we live in a world we did not create; that God’s immanent presence is capable of breaking in on us at every moment; that most of the time we cannot 'taste and see' that presence because we live in a world of self-reflecting mirrors; that only by attention alone...can we live in the world but outside of our existing conceptions of it."

The following poem does this: causing us to look at ourselves but then to look well beyond ourselves.

Angels

They’re everywhere, baby-cheeked cherubs flying
On boutique signs, on cards and magazine covers,
In the serene sky of coffee table books.

They surround us like a halo that is no more
Than a suggestion, a dim waking to something
At the edge of our gaze when we look up.

Trees sway, a bird sings, propelling us to worship
Some source of warmth that will fill in the blank
Spaces of our hearts. Our angels never flash swords,

Flap their six monstrous wings like the sound of chariots,
Mete out judgement, or announce unexpectedly
A precocious child. They tell us to forgive ourselves

And love who we are; they focus us on abundance
So we may have enough for car and house payments,
The kids’ tuition bills. They whisper— there’s a god

Inside of you—and we believe. How good we feel
About ourselves, how unencumbered and free,
As if some transformation had surely taken place.

And so our days unravel in summer pastels,
The sun a mild version of itself, its trellised light
Nearly graspable, dappling the patio bricks and a table

Where a book is opened by the wind, a sign
Without meaning but beautiful, serving almost
No purpose at all except to create a kind of mild
Annunciatory sense that, yes, everything is about us."

(Posted with the poet's permission)

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the award-winning author of the poetry collections Poiema (Wipf & Stock) and So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed (Rubicon Press). They are both available at: www.dsmartin.ca

Cathedral

2011-02-07T14:07:00.002-04:00

The ionic columns hold nothing up

Not the twin cupolas that welcomed mariners to Port-au-Prince

Not the grand round windows of stained-glass ikons

Not the novenas of those who died in the fallen girders,

Unless you count the blue dome of vacant air

The ruined, ruined facades

The hovering stench —

Has Boukman triumphed?

Do Legba and Ghede aka Baron Samedi mount the buried altars?

Does Ogoun lie entombed in this broken peristyle?

Do these curious questions matter to the houngan

Crying down the mess of fallen masonry

To touch his daughter’s ears?—

Outside the shattered cathedral

The women kneeling in the dust

Raise rosaries to the familiar Haitian sky

And lift their psalms

Past the ionic columns

That hold nothing up.

The Madonna of Port au Prince

2011-02-07T13:58:00.003-04:00

You who look like Alice

Your eyes red with shattered plaster and weeping

Your full lips bruised with dirt

Your hairpiece of locks slipping back like a cowl

The powder dusting your oval cheeks is grey concrete —

If the rest of you was not buried under rocks of blasted wall

And the figure in the foreground was not blood splattered

And someone’s leg was not trapped behind you,

You could have been a pretty girl

With sand on your bare arms

Writing your name on a shell

On some beach off Les Cayes—

You who look like Alice

Another lost girl I used to know,

Not an ikon’s model

On a chapel wall in Jacmel

But a strange Madonna anyhow

Flat on the scattered masonry

Sans enfant, or enfant gone from your hands

To the devouring earth —

The ikon herself

Impassive Erzulie, gazing through your Carib face

From a palette of pixels

Framing now before me.

(c) John Robert Lee
(c) Photo by Daniel Morel/Photomorel of Haiti. One of the first news photographs to appear after the January 12th 2010 Haiti earthquake.

"In Caravaggio's ikon"

2011-02-07T13:03:00.002-04:00

“In Caravaggio’s ikon”

In Caravaggio’s ikon of Thomas seeing Christ
all eyes are locked to the doubter’s firm finger
poking around the torn flesh, under

the strong hand of the Carpenter. Thomas,
Apostle to our secular, mocking, murderous
new age, meeting his worst-case scenario

with the firm grit of flesh under his thumb
that index of incarnation— incarnation, Immanuel
God is with us — under the impossible rubble

as we claw at the unimaginable earthfall, Immanuel—
over the body of someone’s son fallen in crossfire
in shrieking shadowlands of betrayal

through terminal disorientation of disease, Immanuel.
Because that wound is real, the death was certain
here, beyond reason, beyond the apocalypse

of private disasters, is something else
is Life beyond life, beyond heartbreak
beyond assassination, beyond the tremblor

at 3 in the afternoon, beyond the amnesiac cancer of the mind.
Here, under our finger, is faith, here is hope,
and He asks us, against the brutal heel on the locked door

the harsh fist of imploding earth
the shroud covered bier—
“Love one another.”

Canticle for Rox boy 2006-2010

2010-07-29T12:18:00.001-04:00

We buried Rox on Sunday morning.
During the kanaval season, he had disappeared for a whole night and returned exhausted the next morning. He stopped eating soon after and generally deteriorated. Thick green stuff clogging his eyes which were turning yellow, no appetite, vomiting up even water. He must have eaten something poisonous in his nocturnal ramblings. So he died Sunday morning and we buried him under the breadfruit tree in Mahanaim's garden.
He was a good dog, devoted and faithful, a sad-eyed pup that generally stayed close to home. He is missed.

Brought me back to Paul's writing in that great chapter 8 of the Book of Romans about resurrection of all creation. Paul says that the "creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." (v. 21). Yes, animals will also share in the general resurrection of the human race. (C.S. Lewis has written well on these matters.) The new heavens and the new earth certainly won't be some impossible, unrealistic scene of weird Caspar-like ghosts on clouds with harps etc etc. That new world in which righteousness dwells, where Christ Jesus is Lord of lords, will be this creation perfected. In the Book of Revelation, John writes of the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down from heaven. He heard a great voice saying, "the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God." [Revelation 21:3]. The New Earth becomes the Centre of the created universe! In that City and recreated world, we will work, and dance and sing and LIVE in a way unimaginable now. And our animals will be with us. So my Rox will be around. With all the other katts I've buried in the garden. "And death shall be no more!"

My Canticle following is inspired by Romans 8:19-23.

Parade

After the promised irruption of heaven into earth
and subsequent looting of the enemy’s barrows,
imagine — the astounded hurtling of hawk, the disconcerted wonder of
hen,
pup’s amazement, astonished mule, kitten dumbfounded, pipirit
shocked!
And then, the heirs of God, cerement free, parading the blue air.

So great leviathan, cattle, creeping thing, each to its kind,
rise without burden, with the lords of the air,
to come to their City, and their names calling out,
from the Lamb’s Opening Book.

(c) John Robert Lee

"The Barred Owl and the Bishop" - from Provocations, A Journal of the Trinity Forum

2010-07-29T11:57:00.001-04:00

The Barred Owl and the Bishop

Feature by T. M. Moore

Poetry and the Power of Association

Barred Owl, photo by Michael Hodge (CC license)

Our image-hungry age

Increasingly, our postmodern generation prefers its communications to be in as few words and as many images as possible. Hence, the curious success of both Facebook—a medium of images—and Twitter—a medium of words. Hence also the success of iPhones and texting, and the continued proliferation of cable television, in-home film delivery services (Netflix), comic books, and film in general.

Our generation relishes a communications diet of visual images seasoned with a few words. Some, such as Neil Postman, have worried that this trend away from verbal communication toward visual images will destroy our ability to communicate meaningfully.[1]

Images and words have factored in human communications from the beginning of civilization. Spoken words reinforced by written words, arranged in a variety of forms (oral history, poetry, songs, plays), can be found in virtually every society, no matter how primitive. Art, sculpture, architecture, fashion, and more have supplemented the verbal images of each generation with visual representations. These can be so powerful as to freeze in time the zeitgeist of an entire generation (compare medieval iconography with nineteenth-century Romantic painting).

But Postman worried that, in our day, the increased hunger for visual images threatens to replace, or, at least, to minimize, the role of words in human communication, thus jeopardizing meaning. He saw this as a most undesirable trend, given that human beings are uniquely identified as the creature that speaks and uses sophisticated language. Thus, our retreat from words into the realm of visual images constitutes a retreat from humanity itself, into a more animalistic world ruled by passions and instincts, rather than by reason.

Words and images

Whether or not that’s so, the opposing of words and images, through the emphasis on visual images, is a troublesome notion in itself. Words can create images through their ability to associate various kinds of facts and experiences. Such images have power to make the kind of lasting impressions visual images can only hope to achieve. Visual images are powerful, to be sure. But they are fleeting. This is why, whether in film, on television, in a political campaign, in advertising, or at a rock concert, it is necessary to pile up image upon image in a dizzying array in order to hold the attention and capture the affections of our image-hungry age.

But words—particularly words combined into verse—have power to create images and associations that can go far beyond what visual images can achieve in the way of lasting, even life-changing, effects. Just as a personal example, I cannot remember a single compelling image—a life-transforming image—from any film, athletic event, television program, or concert which I attended during my years in college. But I can still see the room in which I was sitting, feel the sticky heat of an early September afternoon, and shudder under the chill running up my shoulders the first time I read the final couplet of Yeats’s The Second Coming: “And what rough beast, its hour come ’round at last,/Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?”

Poetry may not be the savior of verbal communication, but it can, at the very least, provide a meeting-ground between those who prefer their communications in images and those who yet pursue them in words. Poetry, more, I think, than any other form of verbal communication, can create associations so personal, and with such expansive power, that they can enthrall the affections and expand the imagination of all who are willing to take the time to read and discuss.

We’ll look at two poems which, by employing various associations, convey powerful images, but which do so in different ways. Richard Wilbur’s A Barred Owl is a very homely, simple, and self-reflective meditation on the power of words—even just a few words—to alter dramatically the landscape of imagination. C. S. Lewis, in his On a Theme from Nicolas of Cusa, takes what is at once a more familiar and yet more intellectual approach to stimulating our imaginations, challenging the reader to explore new associations in order to gain the full meaning implied in his verse.

A Barred Owl

I particularly enjoy poems that reflect on the way words and poetry can affect us, such as this offering by Richard Wilbur:[2]

The warping night air having brought the boom
Of an owl’s voice into her darkened room,
We tell the wakened child that all she heard
Was an odd question from a forest bird,
Asking of us, if rightly listened to,
“Who cooks for you?” and then “Who cooks for you?”

Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear,
Can also thus domesticate a fear,
And send a small child back to sleep at night
Not listening for the sound of stealthy flight
Or dreaming of some small thing in a claw
Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw.

This poem not only paints an image, but fills it, first, with horror, then comic relief, then a renewed sense of horror which, were it to be envisioned by the sleeping child, would doubtless be as terrifying as what she had only imagined.

We not only see that child being comforted by her grandparents, in that dark room, but we feel what she and they must have felt on that dark and warping night: fear, then humor, then reassurance, and, finally, rest. We can only imagine what “terror” was becoming “bravely clear” in the mind of that child before her grandparents arrived to comfort her. Here Wilbur encourages the reader to paint in his or her own image from such childhood fears (mine always had one eye and lots of sharp teeth; I’d read the story of Odysseus and the Cyclops as a very young child).

Then, the mood of terror relieved, the poet muses on the power of words, their ability to define and quell our fears, before beginning a crescendo of horror—“stealthy flight,” “small thing in a claw,” “eaten raw”—that takes something of the child’s original terror and foists it on the reader, suddenly.

I have read this poem to students and delighted to hear their responses go from sighs of relief and giggles to audible gasps at the end. The images suggested by the words of this verse can be made highly personal and relived again and again with each successive reading. I doubt that the experience of A Barred Owl could be captured with lasting effect in any series of visual images.

On a Theme from Nicolas of Cusa

Lewis’s delightful meditation is subtitled, (De Docta Ignorantia, III.ix.). Neither the title nor the subtitle is likely to help most readers of this lively verse, at least, not at first:[3]

When soul and body feed, one sees
Their differing physiologies.
Firmness of apple, fluted shape
Of celery, or tight-skinned grape
I grind and mangle when I eat,
Then in dark, salt, internal heat,
Annihilate their natures by
The very act that makes them I.

But when the soul partakes of good
Or truth, which are her savoury food,
By some far subtler chemistry
It is not they that change, but she,
Who feels them enter with the state
Of conquerors her opened gate,
Or, mirror-like, digests their ray
By turning luminous as they.

The meaning of this poem is not hard to gather: When we eat physical food—in the first stanza, the mention of various foods, reinforced by all those fricatives and labials, that grinding and mangling—our digestive system—“dark, salt, internal heat”—turns what we eat into fuel for the cells of our bodies. The food becomes us, a point comically emphasized by use of the personal pronoun at the very end of the first stanza.

The only “physical” words in the second stanza—“conquerors” and “mirror”—are used as metaphors of abstract subjects. Lewis deftly employs consonance to suggest the softer, subtler, abstract and spiritual concepts which we cannot see or hold in our hands, but which are powerful in transforming us into something other than what we are. “Good” and “truth” are the foods that make us “luminous” like God himself. We must be subdued by such ideas and “digest” them like rays of light in a mirror, so that, glory having been experienced, glory will radiate from us (2 Cor. 3:12–18).

But if this poem is merely about personal transformation, why the cryptic title and subtitle? Why not just call it “Transformation” or “Spiritual Growth: A Comparison” or some such? Because the poem is about much greater transformation, transformation which we experience in a microcosm, but which we can only fully understand and appreciate once we explore the associations suggested in the title and subtitle.

Nicolas of Cusa (1401–1464), Bishop of Brixen, was one of the truly great Renaissance men of his day. He was a pastor, theologian, reformer, scholar, conciliarist, and ecumenist, who fell into disfavor with and was persecuted by the Austrian monarch. He reflected and wrote broadly—on human knowledge, mathematics, philosophy, and history. Nicolas took his Christian faith into every area of life, seeking the transforming power of goodness and truth for individuals, the Church, and society. His Christian worldview seems to have been more self-conscious and expansive than the most of his contemporaries. He would perhaps have been much more at home in this century, amid all our worldview fussing and fretting, than in his own.

In De docta ignorantia, part three and section nine, he reflected on the transforming power of grace, beginning his meditation in that section with a reflection on the dual nature of Christ and concluding with a meditation on the church as the Body of Christ.[4] It is this larger, more expansive notion of transformation that Lewis sees epitomized in the believer’s experience, and that he invites us, by association, to contemplate.

Lewis does not want us to think in a merely personal way about the transforming power of things true and good. Jesus, ground and mangled in the flesh because of the sins of the human ego, rose to everlasting goodness and truth in his glorified body (Is there an allusion to Psalm 24 in those “conquerors”?) and lifts us into his glory by the transforming power of his resurrection life. And not only us: Jesus is making all things new (2 Cor. 5:17; Rev. 21:5). His grace reaches to the whole church and all creation, inviting and calling his transformed people to bring the power of grace to bear on every aspect of life and culture—as Nicolas had sought to do in his day.

Lewis brings the highest aspirations of the medieval church into the individual Christian’s reach by this association with Nicolas, as if to inculcate in us a sense of longing for something much, much more than mere personal piety. The effect on the thoughtful reader is to generate new images of the transforming power of the Gospel as it radiates the glory of God through the church into every area of life.

Postman worried that the increasing barrage of visual images on the brains of contemporary humans would only dull our thinking and stifle imagination. The images created in poetry, through its powers of association, entail no such threat. Rather, poetry can enrich imagination, stimulate conversation, and, perhaps, motivate readers to the kind of deeper introspection—an ongoing dialog between an empty soul and a slouching rough beast, for example—which can set a stage for the drama of grace and truth.

Notes

[1] Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death (New York: Penguin, 1985).

[2] In Richard Wilbur, Collected Poems, 1943–2004 (New York: Harcourt, Inc., 2004), p. 29.

[3] In James H. Trott, ed., A Sacrifice of Praise: An Anthology of Christian Poetry in English from Caedmon to the Mid-Twentieth Century (Nashville: Cumberland House, 1999), p. 734.

[4] http://jasper-hopkins.info/DI-III-12-2000.pdf

T. M. Moore is Dean of the Centurions Program of BreakPoint Ministries and Principal of the Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition (www.myparuchia.com). He serves as Content Manager for the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview (www.chuckcolsoncenter.org) and as General Editor for the Worldview Church (www.worldviewchurch.org). Sign up at his website (www.myparuchia.com) to receive his daily email devotional Crosfigell, reflections on Scripture and the Celtic Christian tradition. You can also sign up at www.colsoncenter.org to receive his daily ViewPoint studies in Christian worldview living, or at www.worldviewchurch.org to receive his daily pastoral devotional, Pastor to Pastor. T. M. and his wife and editor, Susie, make their home in Hamilton, VA.

Select Bibliography of West Indian Literature in English

2010-05-15T19:25:00.019-04:00

Photo: Caribbean writers at Carifesta 1995, Trinidad. L-R: Derek Walcott, Martin Carter, George Lamming, Earl Lovelace, Ernest Mootoosamy (Guadeloupe), Kamau Brathwaite. Photo (c) by Sherwin Griffith.

Caribbean writers at BIM Conference, Barbados, 2008: Carolyn Cooper, Danielle Boodoo-Fortune, Angela Barry, Dana Gilkes, Esther Phillips, Ramabai Espinet, George Lamming, Joanne Hillhouse, Pat Mohammed, Margaret Gill, Curdella Forbes.

DISCOVERING WEST INDIAN LITERATURE IN ENGLISH
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Compiled and selected by John Robert Lee

DEDICATED TO PATRICIA CHARLES, SAINT LUCIA 1937-2010 and REX NETTLEFORD, JAMAICA 1933-2010.

Contents:
Introduction
1. West Indian Authors – Prose writers, mainly novelists, with selected works listed.
2. West Indian Authors – Poets, a Name Index.
3. Selected Anthologies of West Indian Literature.
4. West Indian Literary Journals.
5. Readings on West Indian Literature in English.
6. Readings on The Historical, Cultural and Social Background.

Introduction

This bibliography presents selected texts of Caribbean writing in English and of works on the background to the writing. Many of these represent the first writers and writings that identified and defined West Indian Literature. They are familiar names in the now established West Indian Canon. Many new writers and distinctive works have emerged since the early days, a number of whose names and works are listed. This bibliography is aimed at those discovering the Literature and will help them to identify the major writers, the now-classic authors and talented new voices. The selected readings give a broad chronological background to the history of the literature, and its cultural and historical setting. The anthologies provide a perspective on the span of writers and their concerns. The range of anthologies – from the classic first compilations to the more recent –also offer a historical view of the development of the literature.

Only Prose and Poetry writers are listed. No Drama is cited though a number of the writers are also playwrights. Selected works of the novelists are given (including some of their non-fiction writing,) while only a name index is provided for the poets. Years of births and deaths are given, and the birth place of all writers is listed. The citations are of book texts. No periodical references are provided.

There are many web sites dedicated to West Indian writing in English and the other languages of the region. A Google search of “West Indian Literature” or “Caribbean Literature” will find them. National Bibliographies can be located that list writers and writing by country of origin. Information on individual writers can also be found on the Internet. Numerous blogs discuss Caribbean Literature and related issues.

Peepal Tree Press (www.peepaltreepress.com) is the foremost publisher of Caribbean Literature at this time. Based in Leeds, UK, they are republishing classic West Indian works as well as prose and poetry by new writers. www.caribbeanreviewofbooks.com publishes excellent, readable reviews of new writing. Ian Randle Publishers (www.ianrandlepublishers.com) of Kingston, Jamaica is the leading publisher of scholarly works including some poetry and prose. The University of the West Indies Press (www.uwipress.com) is also increasing its publication of academic texts.

In Section 5, Readings on West Indian Literature in English, a chronological listing by publication date is generally followed. However in some cases, books by certain authors (eg Gordon Rohlehr) or on certain authors (eg Lamming, Walcott), are kept together for ease of reference. A chronological listing is also generally followed in Sections 3 (Anthologies) and 6 (Historical etc background). For section 4, the listing of major Caribbean periodicals, the listing is also chronological, by date of first issue. Sections 1 and 2 (the writers) use an alphabetical listing by authors’ surnames.

Full citations are provided in Sections 3, 5, 6. Section 4 is briefly annotated. In section 1, Authors’ names, dates of birth (and death where necessary), Place of birth (and residence in some cases) and titles of selected works with dates of first and, in some cases other, editions, are given. Section 2 is a Name Index only of poets, with their birth (and death) dates, and place of birth (and in some cases, residence.)

Regarding selection of the newest writers, the criterion used was that they should have published work recognized as significant by their peers, and were themselves recognized by their peers as significant new voices. The past twenty years has seen much publication by new and talented Caribbean writers. Many of these live in the diaspora, but many have also chosen to remain and write and work at home. Their recognition and inclusion ensures that the shaping of the growing Caribbean Canon remains alive, relevant and exciting to follow. Journals like the Caribbean Review of Books proved invaluable as a source of information on new writers and writing, including both the creative and critical works. In this digital time, the Internet and Google were also invaluable in tracking down further information on writers and their works. Because this is only a select bibliography, users and researchers must use Internet search engines to follow paths suggested here.

While this bibliography is not a comprehensive compilation, it is hoped that it provides a good general up-to-date survey of the creative literature of the Anglophone Caribbean. As with all bibliographies of this kind, it will need to be regularly updated. Readers are welcome to make comments and suggestions to the compiler at:

John Robert Lee: johnrenator@gmail.com

www.mahanaimnotes.blogspot.com

Acknowledgements:

Cover photographs:

Caribbean Writers at Carifesta 1995 in Trinidad and Tobago. From l-r: Derek Walcott, Martin Carter, George Lamming, Earl Lovelace, Ernest Mootoosamy (Guadeloupe), Kamau Brathwaite. Photo: courtesy Sherwin Griffith.

Caribbean writers at BIM Conference in Barbados, 2008. From l-r: Carolyn Cooper, Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné, Angela Barry, Dana Gilkes, Esther Phillips, Ramabai Espinet, George Lamming, Joanne Hillhouse, Pat Mohammed, Margaret Gill, Curdella Forbes. Photo: courtesy Joanne Hillhouse.

To all those who encouraged, supported, suggested authors and titles, thank you.

1: West Indian Authors – prose writers, mainly novelists, with selected works listed. Note that this is not a comprehensive listing. Many of these authors have written more works than listed here, including prose non-fiction, poetry, drama and criticism. Internet search engines will help to identify other works of writers.

Lisa Allen-Agostini 19.. Trinidad. The Chalice Project, 2008; co-editor, with Jeanne Mason, of Trinidad Noir. Akashic Books, 2008.

Phyllis S. Allfrey (1908-1986). Dominica. The Orchid House, 1953; It falls into place: the stories of Phyllis Shand Allfrey, 2004.

Michael Als 19-. Trinidad. The Underclass, 2006; Manchild, 2007?/8?; Children’s Feet, 2009.

Michael Anthony 1932 - . Trinidad. The Games were coming, 1963, 2005; The Year in San Fernando, 1965; Green days by the river, 1967; and many other publications, fiction and non-fiction.

Robert Antoni 1958- . Trinidad. Divina Trace, 1991; Blessed is the fruit, 1998; My Grandmother’s Erotic Folktales, 2000; Carnival, 2005.

Michael Aubertin 1948-. St. Lucia. Neg Maron: freedom fighter, 2000.

Kevin Baldeosingh 19…-. Trinidad. The Autobiography of Paras P., 1996; Virgin’s triangle, 1997; The Ten Incarnations of Adam Avatar, 2005.

Lindsay Barrett. 1941-. (writes poetry as Eseoghene). Jamaica. The State of Black desire, 1966; Song for Mumu, 1967, 1974; Veils of Vengeance Falling, 1985.

Angela Barry 19-.. Bermuda. Endangered Species and other stories, 2003.

Valerie Belgrave 19-. Trinidad. Ti Marie, 1988.

Alvin Bennett 1918-. Jamaica. God the Stonebreaker, 1964, 1973.

Jacqueline Bishop 19-. Jamaica. The River’s Song, 2008.

Neil Bissoondath 1955- . Trinidad. A Casual Brutality, 1988; The Innocence of Age, 1992; The Worlds within her, 1998; Digging up the mountains - stories, 1985; On the Eve of Uncertain Tomorrows - stories, 1990.

E.R. Braithwaite 1920-. Guyana. To Sir with love, 1959; Paid servant, 1973; Choice of straws, 1965; Honorary White, 1975.

Erna Brodber 1940 -. Jamaica. Jane and Louisa will soon come home, 1980; Myal, 1988; Louisiana, 1994; The Rainmaker’s Mistake, 2007.

Wayne Brown (1944-2009). Trinidad. The Child of the Sea: stories and remembrances, 1989; Landscape with Heron: stories and remembrances, 2000. Biography: Edna Manley: The private years (1900-1938), 1975.

Tobias S. Buckell 1979-. Grenada/USA. Crystal Rain, 2006; Ragamuffin, 2007; Sly Mongoose, 2008; Halo: The Cole Protocol, 2008; Tides from the New Worlds: short stories, 2009; [with Karen Traviss and Eric Nyland] Halo Evolutions: Essential Tales of the Halo Universe, 2009.

Timothy Callender (1946-1989). Barbados. It so happen, 1975; How music came to the Ainchan people, 1979.

Hazel D. Campbell 1940- . Jamaica. The Rag Doll and Other stories, 1978; Women’s Tongue, 1985; Singerman, 1992.

Jan Carew 1920- . Guyana . Black Midas, 1958, 2009; The Wild Coast, 1958, 2009; The Last Barbarian, 1961.

Margaret Cezair-Thompson 19-. Jamaica. The True History of Paradise, 1999; The Pirate’s Daughter, 2008.

Colin Channer 1963-. Jamaica. Waiting in vain, 1998; Satisfy my soul, 2002; Passing through (stories), 2004; Editor, Iron Balloons: Hit Fiction from Jamaica’s Calabash Writer’s Workshop. Akashic Books, 2006.

David Chariandy 1969-. Trinidad/Canada. Soucouyant, 2007.

Willi Chen 1934- . Trinidad. King of the Carnival and other stories, 1988, 2001.

Austin Clarke 1934 - . Barbados/Toronto. The Survivors of the Crossing, 1964; Amongst thistles and thorns, 1965; The Meeting Point, 1967; Storm of Fortune, 1973; The Bigger Light, 1975; Growing up stupid under the Union Jack, 1980, 2002; Pigtails ‘n’ Breadfruit: A Barbadian memoir, 2000; The Polished Hoe, 2002; The Origin of Waves, 2003; The Prime Minister, 2004; The Meeting Point: The Toronto Trilogy, 2005; More, 2009; and many other novels and non-fiction writing.

Michelle Cliff 1946-. Jamaica. Abeng, 1984; The Land of Look Behind and Claiming (Prose Poetry), 1980; Bodies of Water, 1990; No telephone to heaven, 1987, 1996; Free Enterprise: A Novel of Mary Ellen Pleasant, 1993; The Store of a Million Items, 1998; Everything is now: New and Collected Stories, 2009.

Merle Collins 1950-. Grenada. Angel, 1987; The Colour of Forgetting, 1995;

Frank Collymore (1893-1980). Barbados. The Man who loved attending funerals, 1993.

Orde M. Coombs (1939-1984). St. Vincent. Do you see my love for you growing?: essays, 1972; Drums of Life: A Photographic essay (with Chester Higgins Jr), 1974; Editor: Is Massa Day dead?: Black Moods in the Caribbean, 1974.

Dathorne, Oscar R. (1934-2007). Guyana. Dumplings in the Soup, 1963; The Scholar-man, 1964; Dele’s child, 1986.

Kwame Dawes 1962-. Jamaica/Ghana. A Place to hide and other stories, 2002; She’s gone, 2007.

Neville Dawes (1926-1984). Jamaica. The Last Enchantment, 1960, 2009; Fugue and other writings, 2009.

Fred D’Aguiar 1960-. Guyana. The Longest Memory 1994; Dear Future, 1996; Feeding the Ghosts, 1999; Bethany Bettany, 2003.

Jean D’Costa 1937 - . Jamaican. Sprat Morrison, 1972; Escape to Last Man Peak, 1975; Voice in the Wind, 1978.

Ralph De Boissiere (1907-2008). Trinidad. Crown Jewel, 1952; Rum and Coca Cola, 1956; No Saddles for Kangaroos, 1964; Call of the Rainbow, 2007.

Herbert G. De Lisser (1878-1944). Jamaica. Jane: a story of Jamaica, 1914; Jane’s Career: a story of Jamaica, 1914; The White Witch of Rosehall, 1929.

Mcdonald Dixon 1944-. St. Lucia. Season of Mist, 2000; Misbegotten, 2009; Careme and other stories, 2009.

Geoffrey Drayton 1924- . Barbados . Christopher, 1959; Zohara, 1961.

Zee Edgell 1940-. Belize. Beka Lamb, 1982; In times like these, 1991; The Festival of San Joaquin, 1997.

Ramabai Espinet 1948 – . Trinidad/Canada. The Princess of Spadina, 1992; Ninja’s Carnival, 1993; The Swinging Bridge, 2003.

Merrill Ferguson 19-. Jamaica. Village of Love, 1961.

Curdella Forbes 1957. Jamaica. Songs of Silence, 2002; Flying with Icarus and other stories, 2003; A Permanent Freedom, 2008.

Fitzroy Fraser 19..-19... Jamaica. Wounds in the Flesh, 1962

Beryl Gilroy (1924-2001). Guyana. Frangipani House, 1986; Boy-Sandwich, 1989; In praise of love and children, 1994; The Green Grass Tango, 2001.

Thomas Glave 19 -. Jamaica/New York. Whose Song? and other stories, 2000; The Torturer’s Wife, 2008; Words to our now: Imagination and dissent - Essays, 2005; Editor : Our Caribbean: a gathering of Lesbian and Gay writing from the Antilles, 2008.

Lorna Goodison 1947-. Jamaica. Baby Mother and the King of Swords: short stories, 1990; Fool Fool Rose is leaving Labour-in-vain Savannah, 2005; From Harvey River: a memoir, 2007.

Rudy Gurley 19-. St. Lucia. A Caribbean Tale, 2006; Sent from overseas, 2007.

Rosa Guy 1925 - . Trinidad & Tobago. The Disappearance, 1979; I heard a bird sing, 1986; The Friends, 1995.

Wilson Harris 1921-. Guyana. Palace of the Peacock, 1960; Heartland, 1964, 2009; The Guyana Quartet (his first four novels), 1985; The Eye of the Scarecrow, 1965; The Waiting Room, 1967; The Mask of the Beggar, 2003, The Ghost of Memory, 2006, and many other novels; Selected essays, 1999; Poetry: Eternity to season, 1954.

John Hearne (1926-1995). Jamaica. Voices under the window, 1955; Stranger at the gate, 1956; The Faces of Love, 1957; The Autumn Equinox, 1959; Land of the Living, 1961; The Sure Salvation, 1981. Editor, Carifesta Forum: An Anthology of 20 Caribbean Voices (Carifesta 1976 Publication).

Roy Heath (1926-2009). Guyana. A Man come Home, 1974; The Murderer, 1978; The Shadow Bride, 1988; The Ministry of Hope, 1997; The Armstrong Trilogy, 1994.

Perry Henzell (1936-2006). Jamaica. Cane, 2003; Power Game, 2009.

Joanne C. Hillhouse 1973-. Antigua. Dancing nude in the moonlight, 2004; The Boy from Willlow Bend, 2002, 2009.

Merle Hodge 1944-. Trinidad. Crick Crack, Monkey, 1970; For the Life of Laetitia, 1999.

Nalo Hopkinson 1960- . Trinidad/Toronto. Brown Girl in the Ring, 1998; Midnight Robber, 2000; Skin Folk: short stories, 2001; The Salt Roads, 2003; The New Moon’s Arms, 2007. Editor, Mojo: Conjure Stories, 2003.

Lionel Hutchinson (1923-2000). Barbados. Man from the people, 1970; One touch of nature, 1971;

C L R James (1901-1989). Trinidad. Minty Alley, 1936; The Nobbie Stories for Children and Adults. Edited by Constance Webb (1918-2005), 2006.

Cynthia James 1948-. Trinidad. Bluejean: a novel, 2000; Sapodilla Terrace, 2006.

Kelvin Christopher James 19-. Trinidad/USA. Jumping Ship and other stories, 1992; Secrets, 1993; A Fling with a Demon Lover, 1996; The Sorcerer’s Drum, 2009. The Collected Short Stories of Kelvin Christopher James [part of an academic electronic collection entitled Black Short Fiction. Alexander Street Press, 2004].

Marlon James 1970-. Jamaica. John Crow’s Devil, 2008; The Book of Night Women, 2010.

Marie-Elena John 1963-. Antigua. Unburnable, 2006.

Ruel Johnson 1980-. Guyana. Ariadne and other stories, 2003; Fictions Volume 1, 2008.

Simon Jones-Hendrickson 1945-. St. Kitts/St. Croix. Sonny Jim of Sandy Point, 1991; Death on the Pasture, 1994; Andy Browne’s Departure, 2007; Dana, Steven and Brenda, 2009; A Weekend in Paradise, 2010.

Peter Kempadoo (Lauchmonen) 1926- . Guyana. Guiana Boy, 1960; Old Thom’s Harvest, 1965.

Oonya Kempadoo 1966 -. Guyana. Tide Running, 2003; Buxton Spice, 2004.

Ismith Khan (1925-2002). Trinidad. The Jumbie Bird, 1961; The Obeah Man, 1964; The Crucifixion, 1987; A Day in the Country: stories, 1990.

Jamaica Kincaid (Elaine Potter Richardson) 1949-. Antigua. At the Bottom of the River, 1983; Annie John, 1985; A Small Place, 1988; Lucy, 1991; The Autobiography of my mother, 1996; My brother, 1997; Talk stories, 2000. And other fiction and non-fiction writings.

Karen King-Aribisala 19 -. Guyana/Nigeria. Our wife and other stories, 1991; Kicking tongues, 1998; The Hangman’s Game, 2007.

Harold Sonny Ladoo (1945-1973). Trinidad. No pain like this body, 1972; Yesterdays, 1974.

George Lamming 1927-. Barbados. In the Castle of my skin, 1953; The Emigrants, 1954; Of Age and Innocence, 1958; Season of Adventure, 1960; The Pleasures of Exile (essays), 1960; Water with Berries, 1971; Natives of my person 1972; Cannon Shot and Glass Beads: Modern black writers (Ed.), 1974; Conversations: Essays, addresses and interviews 1953-1990, 1992; Coming, Coming Home: Conversations II, 1995, 2000.

Nicholas Laughlin 1975-. Trinidad. Editor, Caribbean Review of Books 2004-; editor, Town, 2009-; Editor, [CLR James] Letters from London. Prospect press, 2003; Editor, V.S. Naipaul. Letters between a father and son. Picador, 2009.

Sharon Leach 19-. Jamaica. What you can’t tell him: stories, 2006.

Jacintha Anius Lee 1951-. St. Lucia. Give me some more sense: St. Lucian folk tales, 1988.

Andrea Levy 1956-. Jamaica/UK. Small Island, 2004; The Long Song, 2010.

Earl Long 19-. St. Lucia. Consolation, 1995; Voices from a drum, 1996; Slicer, 2000; Leaves in a river, 2009.

Earl Lovelace 1935-. Trinidad. While Gods are falling, 1965, 1984; The Schoolmaster, 1968, 1979; The Dragon can’t dance, 1979; The Wine of Astonishment 1982 ; A Brief Conversion and other stories, 1988; Salt, 1996.

Roger Mais (1905-1955). Jamaica. The Hills were joyful together, 1953, 2009; Brother Man, 1954; Black Lightning, 1955; Listen, the Wind and other stories, 1986.

Rachel Manley 1955 -. Jamaica. Drumblair: memories of a Jamaican Childhood, 1996; Slipstream: a Daughter remembers, 2000; Horses in Her Hair: A Grand-daughter’s Story, 2008.

E. A. Markham (1939-2008). Montserrat. Something Unusual: short stories (1986); Taking the drawing room through customs, 1996; Meet me in Mozambique, 2005; At home with Miss Vanesa, 2006; The Three suitors of Fred Belair, 2009; and other works (including poetry).

Paule Marshall 1929 - . Barbados/USA. Brown Girl, Brownstones, 1959 (1981); Soul clap hands and sing, 1961; The Chosen Place, The Timeless People, 1969; Praisesong for the Widow, 1983; Reena and other stories, 1983; Daughters, 1991; The Fisher King, 2001; Triangular Road, 2009.

Ian McDonald 1933-. Trinidad/Guyana . The Hummingbird Tree, 1969.

Claude McKay (1889-1948). Jamaica. Home to Harlem, 1928; Banana Bottom, 1933.

Alecia McKenzie 1960-. Jamaica. Satellite City, 1993.

Earl McKenzie 1943-. Jamaica. A Boy named Ossie: A Jamaican childhood, 1991; Two roads to Mount Joyful and other stories, 1992.

Mark Mcwatt 1947-. Guyana. Suspended Sentences, 2005.

Pauline Melville 1941-. Guyana/UK. Shape-shifter, 1990; The Ventriloquist’s Tale, 1997; The Migration of ghosts, 1998; Eating Air, 2009.

Alfred Mendes (1897-1991). Trinidad. Pitch Lake, 1934; Black Fauns, 1935; The Man who ran away and other stories of Trinidad in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Ed. by Michèle Levy. UWI Press, 2006.

Kei Miller 1978- . Jamaica. Fear of stones and other stories, 2006; The Same earth, 2008; The Last Warner Woman, 2010.

Edgar Mittelholzer (1909-1965). Guyana. Corentyne Thunder, 1941, 2009; A morning at the office, 1950, 1974,2009; Shadows move among them, 1952; Children of Kaywana, 1952; The Life and Death of Sylvia, 1953; My bones and my flute, 1955; The Jilkington Drama, 1965, and many other novels.

Shani Mootoo, 1958 - . T’dad/Canada. Out on Main Street, 1993; Cereus blooms at night, 1996; He drown she in the sea, 2005; Valmiki’s Daughter, 2008.

Seepersad Naipaul (1906-1953). Trinidad. Adventures of Gurudeva, 1976.

Shiva Naipaul (1945-1985). Trinidad. Fireflies, 1970; The Chip-Chip Gatherers, 1973; North of South, 1978; Black and White, 1980; A Hot Country, 1983; Love and death in a hot country, 1984; Beyond the Dragon’s Mouth: stories and pieces, 1984; An Unfinished Journey, 1986.

V S Naipaul 1932-. Trinidad. The Mystic Masseur, 1957; The Suffrage of Elvira, 1958; Miguel Street, 1959; A House for Mr. Biswas, 1961; The Mimic Men, 1967; In a Free State, 1971; Guerrillas, 1975; A Bend in the River, 1979; Half a Life, 2001; Magic Seeds, 2004. The Middle Passage, 1962; An Area of Darkness, 1964; Among the believers: An Islamic Journey, 1982; The Enigma of Arrival, 1988; A Way in the World, 1995, Beyond belief: Islamic excursions among the converted peoples, 1999; Literary Occasions: essays, 2004; A Writer’s People: Ways of looking and feeling, 2008; and many other novels and non-fiction writing. Letters between a father and son. V.S. Naipaul. Edited by Nicholas Laughlin. Picador, 2009. NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE, 2001

Elma Napier (1892-1973). Dominica. Nothing so blue, 1927; Duet in Discord, 1936 (as Elizabeth Garner); A Flying Fish Whispered, 1938 (as Elizabeth Garner); Youth is a blunder: Memoir, 1948; Winter is in July: memoir, 1949; Black and White Sands: A bohemian life in the colonial Caribbean, 2009.

Christopher Nicole. Guyana. Off-White, 1959; Shadows in the Jungle, 1961; Blood Amyot, 1964; White Boy, 1966, and other novels.

Anton Nimblett. 19-. Trinidad. Sections of an Orange, 2009.

Elizabeth Nunez. 1944-. Trinidad. When Rocks dance, 1992; Beyond the Limbo Silence, 1998; Bruised Hibiscus, 2000; Discretion, 2002; Grace, 2003; Prospero’s daughter, 2006; Anna In-Between, 2009.

C. Everard Palmer 1930 - . Jamaica. The Cloud with the Silver Lining, 1966; Big Doc Bitteroot, 1968; The Sun salutes you, 1970; The Hummingbird People, 1971; The Wooing of Beppo Tate, 1972; A Dog called Houdini, 1979.

Marion Patrick-Jones 193? - . Trinidad. Pan Beat, 1973; J’Ouvert Morning, 1976.

Orlando Patterson 1940 - . Jamaica. The Children of Sisyphus, 1964, 2009; An Absence of ruins, 1967; Die the Long Day, 1971.

Lakshmi Persaud 1939-. Trinidad. Butterfly in the wind, 1990. Sastra, 1993; For the love of my name, 2000; Raise the lanterns high, 2004;

Caryl Phillips 1958 -. St. Kitts. A State of Independence, 1986; The Final passage, 1985; Cambridge, 1991; Crossing the River, 1993; A Distant Shore, 2003; Dancing in the Dark, 2006; Foreigners, 2008; In the Falling Snow, 2009 and other fiction and non-fiction works. Conversations with Caryl Phillips. Edited by Renée T. Schatteman. University Press of Mississippi, 2009.

Geoffrey Philp 19-. Jamaica. Who’s your daddy? and other stories, 2009.

Patricia Powell 1966- . Jamaica. Me dying trial, 1993; A small gathering of bones, 1994; The Pagoda, 1999; The Fullness of Everything, 2009.

Althea Prince 1945-. Antigua. Ladies of the Night and other stories, 1998; Loving this man, 2001.

Raymond Ramcharitar. 19-. Trinidad. The Island Quintet: A Sequence, 2009.

Paulette Ramsay 1956-. Jamaica. Aunt Jen, 2003; Between two silences [Translation of short stories by Hilma Contreras of the Dominican Republic], 2004; On Friday Night [Translation of Ecuadorean novel by Luz Argentina Chiribog. With Anne-Maria Bankay.], 2009.

Tom Redcam (Thomas H. MacDermot) (1870-1933). Jamaica. Beckra’s Buckra Baby, 1903; One Brown Girl and - , 1909.

V S Reid (1913-1987). Jamaica. The Leopard, 1958; Sixty-five, 1960; New Day, 1973, 2009;

Anderson Reynolds 19-. St. Lucia. Death by fire, 1999.

Trevor Rhone 1940 – 2009. Jamaica. Bellas Gate Boy (Memoir), 2008.

Jean Rhys (Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams 1894-1979). Dominica. Quartet, 1928, 1969; After leaving Mr. Mackenzie, 1930; Good Morning, Midnight, 1939, 1969; Wide Sargasso Sea, 1966; Sleep it off Lady: stories, 1976, 1979; Smile Please, 1979; Tales of the Wide Caribbean, 1985; Complete Novels (Norton), 1985; The Collected Short Stories (Norton), 1990; and other novels and essays.

Joan Riley 1958 - . Jamaica. The Unbelonging, 1984; Waiting in the Twilight, 1987; Romance, 1988; The Waiting Room, 1989; A kindness to the children, 1992.

W. Adolphe Roberts (1886-1962). Jamaica. The Haunting Hand, 1926; Creole Dusk, 1948; The Single Star, 1949 and other novels.

Jacob Ross 19-. Grenada. Pynter Bender, 2008.

Namba Roy (1910-1961). Jamaica . Black Albino, 1961.

Garth St. Omer 1931- . St. Lucia. Syrop: a novella, 1964; A Room on the Hill, 1968; Shades of Grey, 1968; Nor Any Country, 1969; J-, Black Bam and the Masqueraders, 1972; The Lights on the Hill, 1968, 1986.

Andrew Salkey (1928-1995). Jamaica. A Quality of Violence, 1959; Escape to an Autumn Pavement, 1960, 2009; Anancy’s Score, 1973; Anancy Traveler, 1992; Havana Journal, 1971; Georgetown Journal, 1972 and many other writings.

Robert Edison Sandiford 1968-. Barbados. Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall : stories, 1995; Sand for snow, 2003; The Tree of Youth and other stories, 2005. Graphic novels (with various illustrators): Attractive Forces, 1997; Stray Moonbeams, 2002; Great Moves, 2010.

Lawrence Scott 1943-. Trinidad. Witchbroom, 1992; Ballad for the New World and Other Stories, 1994; Aelred’s Sin, 1998; Night Calypso, 2004.

Samuel Selvon (1923-1994). Trinidad. A Brighter Sun, 1952; The Lonely Londoners, 1956, 1972; Ways of Sunlight, 1957, 1973; Turn again Tiger, 1958; Moses Ascending, 1972; Eldorado West One ( 7 one act plays based on the characters from the novels), 1988; Foreday morning, 1989; Highway in the sun and other plays, 1991; and other novels.

Olive Senior, 1941- .Jamaica. Summer Lightning and Other stories, 1986; Arrival of the Snake Woman and other stories, 1989.

Janice Shinebourne 19-. Guyana. Timepiece, 1986; The Last English Plantation, 1989.

Vanessa Spence 1961-. Jamaica. The Roads are down, 1993.

Jeremy Taylor 19-. UK/Trinidad. Going to Ground : Journalism (1972-1992),1994.

Michael Thelwell 1939-. Jamaica. The Harder they Come, 1994.

G.C.H. Thomas (1911-1994). St. Vincent. Ruler in Hiroona, 1972.

Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw 1964-. Trinidad. Four taxis facing north, 2007.

Eric Walrond (1898-1966). Guyana. Tropic Death, 1926.

Gemma Weekes 1978-. St. Lucia. Love Me, 2009

John Wickham (1923-2000). Barbados. Casuarina Row, 1974; World without end, 1982; Discoveries, 1993.

Denis Williams (1923-1998). Guyana. Other Leopards, 1963, 2009; The Third Temptation, 1968, 2009.

N D Williams 1942- . Guyana. Ikael Torass, 1976; The Crying of rainbirds, 1992; The Silence of Islands, 1994; Julie Mango – stories, 2003; The Friendship of Shoes – stories, 2005.

Anthony C. Winkler 1942- . Jamaica. The Painted canoe, 1983; The Lunatic, 1987. The Duppy, 2008; Crocodile, 2009, and other novels.

Sylvia Wynter 1928-. The Hills of Hebron, 1962.

2.West Indian authors – poets, a name index.

This list represents many of the major names in West Indian poetry. It is not an all-inclusive compilation. Many of the writers whose works now form the foundation of West Indian Literature are listed here. A number of newer writers are also included.

The names of the writers and their place of birth are given. Birth and death dates are added. Titles of their works are not included. Many West Indian writers produce both prose and poetry. An Internet search will provide more information on the writers and their major works.

James Christopher Aboud 1956 -. Trinidad

Opal Palmer Adisa 1954-. Jamaica

Roger Bonair-Agard 19-. Trinidad

John Agard 1949-. Guyana

Lillian Allen 1951-. Jamaica

Phyllis Shand Allfrey (1908 – 1986), Dominica

Adrian Augier 1959-. St. Lucia

Raymond Barrow 1920-. Belize

Edward Baugh 1936-, Jamaica

Vera Bell 1906 - . Jamaica

Louise Bennet-Coverley (1919-2006). Jamaica

James Berry 1924-, Jamaica/UK

Marion Bethel 19-. Bahamas

Nicolette Bethel 19-. Bahamas

Jacqueline Bishop 19-. Jamaica

Valerie Bloom 1956-. Jamaica

Dionne Brand 1953-. Trinidad

Kamau Brathwaite 1930-. Barbados

Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze 1957-. Jamaica

Wayne Brown, Trinidad. (1944-2009)

Christian Campbell 19-. Bahamas

George Campbell (1916-2002). Jamaica

Vahni Capildeo 1973-. Trinidad

H.D. Carberry 1921-. Jamaica

Peggy Carr 1955-. St. Vincent

Martin Carter (1927-1997). Guyana

Wilfred Cartey (1931-1992). Trinidad

Brian Chan 1949-. Guyana

Faustin Charles 1944-. Trinidad/UK

Staceyann Chin 1971-. Jamaica

LeRoy Clarke 1938-. Trinidad

Michelle Cliff 1946-. Jamaica

Merle Collins 1950-. Grenada

Frank Collymore (1893-1980). Barbados

Christine Craig 1943-. Jamaica

Dennis Craig (1929-2004). Guyana

Fred D’Aguiar 1960-. Guyana/UK

Cyril Dabydeen 1945-. Guyana/UK

David Dabydeen 1955-. Guyana/UK

Melania Daniel 1962-. St. Lucia

Mahadai Das (1954-2003). Guyana

Oscar R. Dathorne (1934-2007). Guyana

Kwame Dawes 1962-. Jamaica

Linda M. Deane 19-. Barbados

McDonald Dixon 1944-. St. Lucia

J. Edsel Edmunds 1935-. St. Lucia

Gloria Escoffery (1923-2002). Jamaica

Winston Farrell 19-. Barbados

Howard Fergus 1937-. Montserrat

Hunter J. Francois 1924-. St. Lucia

John Figueroa (1920-1999). Jamaica

Honor Ford-Smith 1951-. Jamaica

Denis Foster 19-. Barbados

Michael Foster (19..-19..). Barbados

Michael Gilkes 1933-. Guyana

Margaret Gill 1953-. Barbados

Anson Gonzalez 1936-. Trinidad

Lorna Goodison 1947-. Jamaica

Millicent A. Graham 1974-. Jamaica

Cecil Gray 1923-. Trinidad

Stanley Greaves 1934- . Guyana

Claire Harris 1937-. Trinidad/Canada

Wilson Harris 1921 - . Guyana

Cecil Herbert 1926-. Trinidad

A.L. Hendricks (1922-1992). Jamaica

Kendel Hippolyte 1952-. St. Lucia

Jane King-Hippolyte 1952-. St. Lucia

Abdur Rahman Slade Hopkinson (1934-1993). Guyana

Ishion Hutchinson 19-. Jamaica

Arnold Harrichand Itwaru 1942-. Guyana

Cynthia James 1948 - . Trinidad

Bongo Jerry 1948-. Jamaica

Linton Kwesi Johnson 1952-. Jamaica/UK

Evan Jones 1927-. Jamaica

Simon Jones-Hendrickson 1945-. St. Kitts/St. Croix

E. McG. ‘Shake’ Keane (1927-1997). St. Vincent

Paul Keens-Douglas 1942-. Grenada/Trinidad

Ricardo Keens-Douglas 1953-. Grenada

Anthony Kellman 1955-. Barbados

Anthony John La Rose (1927-2009). Trinidad

Paul A. Layne (19?—1971). Grenada/Barbados

Fragano Ledgister 1956-. London/Jamaica

John Robert Lee 1948-. St. Lucia

Edward Lucie-Smith 1933- . Jamaica

Vladimir Lucien 1978-. St. Lucia

Malik (Delano Abdul Malik De Coteau) 1940-. Grenada

Rachel Manley 1955- . Jamaica

E. A. Markham (1939-2009). Montserrat

Una Marson 1905-1965. Jamaica

Mark Matthews 1937-. Guyana

Wordsworth McAndrew (1936-2008). Guyana

Shara McCallum 19-. Jamaica

Ian McDonald 1933-. Tdad/Guyana

Basil McFarlane 1922-. Jamaica

J. E. Clare McFarlane (1894-1962). Jamaica

Claude McKay (1889-1948). Jamaica/USA

Earl McKenzie 1943-. Jamaica

Anthony McNeill (1941-1996). Jamaica

Dionyse McTair 19-. Trinidad

Roger Mc Tair 1943-. Trinidad and Tobago

Mark McWatt 1947-. Guyana

Judy Miles 1942-. Trinidad & Tobago

Kei Miller 1978-. Jamaica

Rooplal Monar 1945-. Guyana

Pamela Mordecai 1942-. Jamaica

Mervyn Morris 1937-. Jamaica

Mutabaruka 1952-. Jamaica

Philip Nanton 1947-. St. Vincent

Grace Nichols 1950-. Guyana/UK

Oku Onuora (Orlando Wong)1952-. Jamaica

Jude Patrong 19-. Trinidad

Sasenarine Persaud 1958-. Guyana

Marlene Nourbese Philip 1947-. Trinidad

Esther Phillips 19-. Barbados

Geoffrey Philp 1958- . Jamaica

Velma Pollard 1937-. Jamaica

Victor Questel, (1949-1982). Trinidad

Jennifer Rahim 1963-. Trinidad

Barnabas J. Ramon-Fortuné (1905- ?? ). Trinidad

Rajandaye Ramkissoon-Chen 1936-. Trinidad

Paulette Ramsay 1956-. Jamaica

Claudia Rankine 1963- . Jamaica

Eric Roach (1915-1974). Trinidad

Althea Romeo-Mark 1948- . Antigua

Rupert Roopnaraine 19-. Guyana

Sassy Ross 19-. St. Lucia

Andrew Salkey (1928-1995). Jamaica

Dennis Scott (1939-1991). Jamaica

Olive Senior 1941-. Jamaica

Arthur J. Seymour (1914-1989). Guyana

Philip Sherlock (1902-2000). Jamaica

Tanya Shirley 19-. Jamaica

Hazel Simmons-McDonald 1947-. St. Lucia

Louis Simpson 1923-. Jamaica

Dorothea Smartt 19 -. London/Barbados

M. G. Smith (1921-1993). Jamaica

Obadiah Michael Smith 19-. Bahamas

Michael Smith (1954-1983). Jamaica

Eintou Pearl Springer 1944-. Trinidad

Gandolph St. Clair 1951.- St. Lucia

Bruce St. John. (1923-1995). Barbados

Ian Gregory Strachan 19-. Bahamas

Harold Telemaque. (1909-1982). Trinidad

Ralph Thompson 1928-. Jamaica

Patricia Turnbull 19-. St. Lucia

H.A. Vaughan (1901-1985). Barbados

Vivian Virtue (1911-1998). Jamaica

Derek Walcott, 1930-. Saint Lucia. NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE, 1992.

Daniel Williams (1927-1972). St. Vincent

Milton Vishnu Williams 1936-. Guyana

Cynthia Wilson 1934-. Barbados

3. Selections of West Indian Literature - Anthologies

PROSE FICTION (Some of the general anthologies carry poems)

West Indian Stories. Edited by Andrew Salkey. Faber, 1960.

Tales from the West Indies retold by Philip Sherlock. [A collection of folk tales]. Oxford, 1966.

Caribbean Literature: An Anthology. Selected and edited by G. R. Coulthard. University of London Press, 1966.

From the Green Antilles: Writings of the Caribbean. Edited by Barbara Howes. Souvenir Press, 1967.

The Sun’s Eye. New Edition. Compiled by Anne Walmsley. Longman Caribbean, 1968.

New Writing in the Caribbean. Edited by A.J. Seymour. Carifesta 1972 Publication. [Prose and poetry from all Caribbean language areas, including Latin America.]

Caribbean Rhythms: the emerging English Literature of the West Indies. James T. Livingston. NY: Washington Square Press, 1974.

New Planet: Anthology of Modern Caribbean Writing. Edited by Amon Saba Saakana (as Sebastian Clarke). Karnak House, 1978.

Best West Indian Stories. Edited by Kenneth Ramchand. Nelson Caribbean, 1982. [Selected short stories by major WI writers]

An Anthology of African and Caribbean Writing in English. Edited by John J. Figueroa. Heinemann, 1982.

Facing the Sea. Compiled by Anne Walmsley and Nick Caistor. Heinemann, 1986.

Her True-True Name: an anthology of women’s writing from the Caribbean. Edited by Pamela Mordecai and Betty Wilson. Heinemann, 1989.

Caribbean New Wave: Contemporary Short Stories. Edited by Stewart Brown. Heinemann, 1990.

The Faber Book of Contemporary Caribbean Short Stories. Edited by Mervyn Morris. Faber, 1990.

Green Cane and Juicy Flotsam: short stories by Caribbean Women. Edited by Carmen C. Esteves and Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert. Rutgers University Press, 1991.

And I remember many things: folklore of the Caribbean. Compiled and edited by Christine Barrow. Ian Randle Publishers, 1993.

The Penguin Book of Caribbean Short Stories. Edited by E. A. Markham. Penguin, 1996.

Caribbean Women Writers. Edited by Harold Bloom. Chelsea House Publications, 1997.

The Whistling Bird: Women writers of the Caribbean [Fiction, Verse, Plays]. Edited by Elaine Campbell, Pierrette Frickey. Lynne Reinner Publishers, 1998.

The Oxford Book of Caribbean Short Stories. Edited by Stewart Brown and John Wickham. Oxford, 1999.

Caribbean Folk Tales and Fantasies. Michael Anthony. Macmillan Caribbean, 2004.

Stories from the Blue Latitudes: Caribbean Women Writers at home and abroad. Edited by Elizabeth Nunez and Jennifer Sparrow. Seal Press, 2006.

Pulse: A Collection of essays by Saint Lucian writers. Edited by Kendel Hippolyte and Melchoir Henry, 1980.

Saint Lucian Literature and Theatre: an anthology of reviews. Compiled and edited by John Robert Lee and Kendel Hippolyte. Castries: Cultural Development Foundation, 2006.

POETRY

An Anthology of West Indian Poetry: Federation Commemoration Issue. Caribbean Quarterly Vol.5 No.3 (April 1958). Editors: Philip M. Sherlock and Andrew T. Carr. [“This West Indies Federation commemorative issue of Caribbean Quarterly marked the opening of the West Indies Parliament by Her Royal Highness Princess Margaret on the 22^nd April 1958”].

Caribbean Verse: an anthology. Edited and introduced by O.R. Dathorne. Heinemann Educational Books Ltd, 1967.

Caribbean Voices: an anthology of West Indian Poetry. Selected by John Figueroa. Vol. 1 – Dreams and Visions. Evans Brothers, 1966; Vol. 2 – The Blue Horizons. Evans Brothers, 1970.

West Indian Poetry. New edition. Edited by Kenneth Ramchand and Cecil Gray. Longman Caribbean, 1971.

Breaklight: an anthology of Caribbean poetry. Edited by Andrew Salkey. Hamish Hamilton, 1971.

Melanthika: an Anthology of Pan-Caribbean writing. Edited by Nick Toczek, Philip Nanton and Yann Lovelock. L.W.M. Publications, 1977.

News for Babylon: The Chatto Book of Westindian – British Poetry. Edited by James Berry. Chatto and Windus, 1984.

A Shapely Fire: Black Writers in Canada. Edited by Cyril Dabydeen. Mosaic press, 1987.

Jahaji Bhai: an anthology of Indo-Caribbean Literature. Frank Birbalsingh. TSAR, 1988.

Voiceprint: an anthology of oral and related poetry from the Caribbean. Selected and edited by Stewart Brown, Mervyn Morris, Gordon Rohlehr. Longman, 1989.

Hinterland: Caribbean poetry from the West Indies and Britain. Edited by E.A. Markham. Bloodaxe Books, 1989.

Creation Fire: A CAFRA Anthology of Caribbean Women’s Poetry. Edited by Ramabai Espinet. Sister Vision, 1990.

The Heinemann Book of Caribbean Poetry. Selected by Ian McDonald and Stewart Brown. Heinemann, 1992.

Caribbean Poetry Now. 2^nd edition. Edited by Stewart Brown. Edward Arnold, 1992.

Crossing Water: Contemporary Poetry of the English-Speaking Caribbean. Edited by Anthony Kellman. NY: The Greenfield Review Press, 1992.

The Massachusetts Review: Contemporary Caribbean Culture and Art. Autumn-Winter 1994.

The Penguin Book of Caribbean Verse in English. Edited by Paula Burnett. Penguin Classics, 1986, 2005.

The Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse. Edited by Stewart Brown and Mark McWatt. Oxford, 2005.

University of Hunger: Collected poems and selected prose of Martin Carter. Edited by Gemma Robinson. Tarset: Bloodaxe Books, 2006.

New Caribbean Poetry: an Anthology. Edited by Kei Miller. Carcanet, 2007.

Wheel and Come Again: An Anthology of Reggae Poetry. Edited by Kwame Dawes. Peepal Tree press, 2008.

Confluence: nine Saint Lucian poets. Edited by Kendel Hippolyte. Castries, 1988.

Roseau Valley and other poems for Brother George Odlum. Compiled and edited by John Robert Lee. Castries, 2003. [50 years of St. Lucian poetry and art].

4. West Indian Literary Journals

BIM. Barbados. Begun in December 1942 by E.L. (Jimmy) Cozier the Founder and First editor. Edited for many years by Frank Collymore and John Wickham. New issues are now edited by Esther Phillips.

Kyk –Over- Al. Guyana. Founded in 1945. Edited by the late A. J. Seymour. Last issue in 1961 after 28 issues. Kyk-over-Al #49/50 (June 2000) dedicated to Martin Carter Tribute. More recent editors of occasional publications: Ian McDonald and Vanda Radzik.

Focus. Jamaica. Edited by Edna Manley in 1943, 1948, 1956, 1960. 1983 edition edited by Mervyn Morris.

Caribbean Quarterly 1949-. Edited by Director of Extra Mural Studies, UWI, Mona, Jamaica.

New World Quarterly: A Journal of Caribbean Affairs and Public Opinion (1965-1969?/1972). Managing Editor: George Beckford (1934-1990). Published by New World Group Ltd. Carried poems, prose and literary reviews.

Jamaica Journal 1967- . Journal of the Institute of Jamaica.

The Trinidad and Tobago Review (formerly Tapia), beginning publication in 1969, has regularly published poetry, prose and reviews of Caribbean Literature. Among its writers have been Derek Walcott, Kamau Brathwaite, Gordon Rohlehr, Ian McDonald, Kenneth Ramchand. It was edited for many years by the late Lloyd Best (1934-2007). Published by the Trinidad and Tobago Institute of the West Indies.

SAVACOU: A Journal of the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM). From Issue #1 June 1970 – Issue #15 1980. Main editors were Kamau Brathwaite, Andrew Salkey, Kenneth Ramchand, Gordon Rohlehr. Published by CAM and Savacou Publications Ltd. A number of issues were anthologies of writing, in particular the landmark and controversial Savacou 3/4 which presented New Writing 1970.

The New Voices. Trinidad. No longer published. Edited from 1973 to 1993, by Trinidadian author, Anson Gonzalez.

The Journal of West Indian Literature 1986 -. Edited and published by Departments of Literatures in English, The University of the West Indies.

The Caribbean Writer 1987-. Published by the University of the Virgin Islands.

WASAFIRI (UK) 1984-. Edited by Susheila Nasta. Published for the Association for the Teaching of Caribbean, African, Asian and Associated Literatures (ATCAL).

Caribbean Beat: the magazine of the true Caribbean. Published since 1992 by Media and Editorial Projects Ltd (MEP), it is the leading magazine on Caribbean and West Indian arts, culture and society. The inflight magazine of Caribbean Airways. (formerly BWIA).

Calabash: A Journal of Caribbean Arts and Letters. 2000-. Founding Editor: Jacqueline Bishop. Editor: Gerard Aching.

Small axe: a Caribbean Journal of criticism 2001-. Editor: David Scott (1958-). Associate Editors: Anthony Bogues, Nadi Edwards, Annie Paul.

The Caribbean Review of Books (CRB). First edited by the late Samuel B. Bandara, in Jamaica, 1991-1994. Revived in 2004. Edited by Nicholas Laughlin, Trinidad. www.caribbeanreviewofbooks.com. Now an online journal.

The Arts Journal: Critical Perspectives on the contemporary Literature, Art and Culture of Guyana and the Anglophone Caribbean. May 2004-. Published yearly by The Arts Forum Inc., Georgetown, Guyana. Editor: Ameena Gafoor. www.theartsjournal.org.gy

Many of these Journals and others that review Caribbean Literature are now online. Many blogs created by individual writers discuss and review Caribbean Literature and related issues. In its February 2009 Issue, CRB discussed the growing necessity for online literary journals. Some of the sites noted were:

Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal (www.anthurium.miami.edu). Published from the University of Miami, debuted online in 2003. Appears roughly twice per year.

Calabash: A Journal of Caribbean Arts and Letters (www.nyu.edu/calabash). Based at New York University. Started in 2000.

Repeating Islands (www.repeatingislands.com). Started in 2009.

Tongues of the Ocean (www.tonguesoftheocean.org). Poetry journal based in the Bahamas. Launched in 2009. Edited by poet and playwright Nicolette Bethel. Three issues annually.

ArtsEtc: The Premier Cultural Guide to Barbados 2003-, edited by Robert Edison Sandiford and Linda M. Deane. ArtsEtc have also moved online to broaden their contributors and audience. www.artsetcbarbados.com.

5: Readings on West Indian Literature in English.

West Indian Literature. 2^nd Edition. Edited by Bruce King. Macmillan, 1995. [Provides a historical background to West Indian writing, with brief studies of selected writers.]

Tradition the writer and society: Critical essays. Wilson Harris. New Beacon Books, 1967.

The Islands in Between. Edited by Louis James. Oxford, 1968.

Caribbean writers: critical essays. Ivan Van Sertima (1935-2009). New Beacon Books, 1968.

The West Indian Novel and its background. Kenneth Ramchand (1939-). Faber 1970; Heinemann, 1993. Revised edition published by Ian Randle Publishers, 2004. With bibliographies to 1967.

West Indian Poetry 1900-1970: A study in cultural decolonization. Edward Baugh. Kingston: Savacou Publications, 1971.

West Indian Poetry. Lloyd Brown. Boston: Twayne Publications, 1978.

Critics on Caribbean Literature. Edited by Edward Baugh. Allen and Unwin, 1978.

A Companion to West Indian Literature. Michael Hughes. London: Collins, 1979.

On George Lamming:

The Novels of George Lamming. Sandra Paquet Pouchet. Heinemann, 1983.

Caliban’s Curse: George Lamming and the revisioning of history. Supriya Nair. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996.

From Nation to Diaspora: Samuel Selvon, George Lamming and the Cultural Performance of Gender. Curdella Forbes. Kingston: UWI Press, 2005.

Resistance and Caribbean Literature. Selwyn R. Cudjoe. Ohio University Press, 1980.

The Man-of-Words in the West Indies: Performance and the Emergence of Creole Culture. Roger D. Abrahams. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983.

On Jean Rhys:

Jean Rhys. Carole Angier. Penguin, 1985.

Jean Rhys. Letters 1931-1966. Edited by Francis Wyndham and Diana Melly. Viking Adult, 1984. Penguin Twentieth Century Classics, 1995.

Jean Rhys’s Imagination: Reading and Writing the Creole. Veronica Marie Gregg. Atlantic Books, 1995.

Jean Rhys (Cambridge Studies in African and Caribbean Literature). Elaine Savory, 2007.

The Cambridge Introduction to Jean Rhys (Cambridge Introductions to Literature). Elaine Savory. 2009.

The Blue Hour: A Portrait of Jean Rhys (Bloomsbury Lives of Women). Lilian Pizzichini. Bloomsbury, 2010.

History of the Voice: The Development of Nation Language in Anglophone Caribbean Poetry. Kamau Brathwaite. London: New Beacon Books, 1984.

Poetry in the Caribbean. Julie Pearn. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1985.

Passion and Exile: Essays in Caribbean Literature. Frank Birbalsingh. Hansib, 1988.

A Reader’s Guide to West Indian and Black Literature. David Dabydeen and Nana Wilson-Tagore. Hansib, 1988.

Edna Manley: The Diaries. Edna Manley ( 1900-1987). Edited by Rachel Manley. Deutsch, 1989.

The Caribbean Artists Movement 1966-1972: A literary and cultural history. Anne Walmsley. New Beacon Books, 1992.

New World Adams: conversations with contemporary West Indian Writers. Daryl Cumber Dance. Peepal Tree, 1992.

Gordon Rohlehr (1942-.):

Calypso and Society in Pre-Independence Trinidad. Gordon Rohlehr. Port of Spain, 1990.

The Shape of that Hurt and other essays. Gordon Rohlehr. Longman Trinidad Ltd, 1992.

My Strangled City and other essays. Gordon Rohlehr. Longman Trinidad Ltd, 1992.

A Scuffling of islands: Essays on Calypso. Gordon Rohlehr. Lexicon Trinidad Ltd, 2004.

Transgression, Transition, Transformation: Essays in Caribbean Culture. Gordon Rohlehr. Lexicon Trinidad Ltd, 2007.

On Kamau Brathwaite:

Pathfinder: Black awakening in The Arrivants of Edward Kamau Brathwaite. Gordon Rohlehr, 1981.

Roots: essays of Kamau Brathwaite. Kamau Brathwaite. University of Michigan, 1993.

The Art of Kamau Brathwaite. Edited by Stewart Brown. Seren Books, 1995.

Kamau Brathwaite’s MiddlePassages: A Lecture, with an introduction by Elaine Savory, produced by Hyacinth M. Simpson. Sandberry Press, 2005. [CD, 65 minutes].

Caribbean Culture: soundings on Kamau Brathwaite. Edited by Annie Paul. UWI Press, 2007.

Come back to me my language: poetry and the West Indies. J. Edward Chamberlin. Illinois, 1993.

Woman version: Theoretical Approaches to West Indian Fiction by Women. Evelyn O’Callaghan. Warwick University Caribbean Studies, 1993.

Out of the Kumbla: Caribbean Women and Literature. Edited by Carole Boyce Davies, Elaine Savory Fido. NJ: Africa World Press, 1994.

Women writing the West Indies, 1804-1939: ‘A Hot Place, belonging to us.’ Evelyn O’Callaghan. London: Routledge Research in Postcolonial literatures, 2004.

Deconstruction, Imperialism and the West Indian novel. Glyne A. Griffith. UWI Press, 1995.

Rena Juneja. Caribbean Transactions: West Indian Culture in Literature. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996.

The Repeating Island: The Caribbean and the Postmodern Perspective. Antonio Benitez-Rojo (1931-2004). Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996.

Frontiers of Caribbean Literature in English ( Interviews). Edited by Frank Birbalsingh. St. Martin’s Press, 1996.

The Routledge reader in Caribbean Literature. Edited by Alison Donnell, Sarah Lawson Welsh, 1996.

Traveller’s Literary Companion: Caribbean. James Ferguson. Passport Books, 1997.

Conversations with V.S. Naipaul. Edited by Feroza Jussawalla. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1997.

An introduction to West Indian Poetry. Laurence A. Breiner. Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Historical thought and literary representation in West Indian Literature. Nana Wilson-Tagoe. UWI Press, 1998.

Beating a Restless Drum: The Poetics of Kamau Brathwaite and Derek Walcott. June Bobb. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1998.

The Other America: Caribbean Literature in a New World Context. J. Michael Dash. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1998.

Caribbean Literature in English. Louis James. Longman, 1999.

Is English we speaking and other essays. Mervyn Morris. Ian Randle Publishers, 1999.

Natural Mysticism: Towards a New Reggae Aesthetic. Kwame Dawes. Peepal Tree Press, 1999.

Making Men: Gender, Literary Authority and Women’s Writing in Caribbean Narrative. Belinda Edmondson. Duke University Press, 1999.

Talk yuh talk: Interviews with Anglophone Caribbean Poets. Edited by Kwame Dawes. University of Virginia Press, 2000.

Caribbean Waves: Relocating Claude McKay and Paule Marshall (Blacks in the Diaspora). Heather Hathaway. Indiana University Press, 2000.

On Derek Walcott:

The Art of Derek Walcott. Edited by Stewart Brown. Seren Books, 1991.

Critical Perspectives on Derek Walcott. Edited by Robert Hamner. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1996.

Conversations with Derek Walcott. Edited by William Baer. University Press of Mississippi, 1996.

What the Twilight says: Essays. Derek Walcott. Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1998.

Derek Walcott: A Caribbean Life. Bruce King. Oxford, 2000.

Abandoning dead metaphors: the Caribbean phase of Derek Walcott’s poetry. Patricia Ismond (1944-2006). University of the West Indies Press, 2001.

Nobody’s Nation: Reading Derek Walcott. Paul Breslin. University of Chicago Press, 2001.

Derek Walcott. Edward Baugh. Cambridge University Press [Cambridge Studies in African and Caribbean Literature], 2006.

The Caribbean Novel in English: An Introduction. Edited by M. Keith Booker and Dubravka Juraga. Ian Randle Publishers, 2001.

The novels of Samuel Selvon: A critical study. Roydon Salick. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001.

The Maroon Narrative: Caribbean Literature in English across boundaries, ethnicities and centuries (Studies in Caribbean Literature). Cynthia James. Heinemann, 2002.

The Empire writes back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, Helen Tiffin. 2nd Edition. Routledge, 2002.

V.S. Naipaul. 2^nd edition. Bruce King. Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

The Second Shipwreck. A Study of Indo-Caribbean Literature. Jeremy Poynting. Peepal Tree, 2003.

Self-Portraits: Interviews with Ten West Indian Writers and Two Critics. Funso Aiyejina. UWI School of Continuing Studies, St. Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago, 2003.

Growing in the Dark: Selected Essays. Earl Lovelace and Funso Aiyejina. Port of Spain: Lexicon, 2003.

On Wilson Harris:

Wilson Harris: A Philosophical Approach. C.L.R. James. UWI, 1965.

Wilson Harris and the Caribbean novel. Michael Gilkes. Longman, 1975.

Wilson Harris. Hena Maes-Jelinek. Boston: Twayne, 1982.

The Literate Imagination: Essays on the novels of Wilson Harris. Edited by Michael Gilkes. Macmillan, 1989.

Selected Essays of Wilson Harris, the unfinished Genesis of the Imagination. Edited by A.J.M. Bundy. Routledge, 1999.

Exploring the Palace of the Peacock: Essays on Wilson Harris. Joyce Sparer Adler. Edited by Irving Adler, UWI Press, 2003.

All are involved: the Art of Martin Carter. Edited by Stewart Brown. Peepal Tree, 2004.

Making West Indian Literature (Essays and interviews). Mervyn Morris. Ian Randle Publishers, 2005.

Twentieth Century Caribbean Literature: Critical Moments in Anglophone Literary History. Alison Donnell. Routledge, 2005.

Caribbean Literature and the Environment: Between Nature and Culture. Elizabeth M. De Loughery. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2005.

Tourist, traveller, troublemaker: essays on poetry. Stewart Brown. Peepal Tree, 2007.

Nationalism and the Formation of Caribbean Literature. Leah Reade Rosenberg. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

The World is what it is: The Authorised Biography of V.S. Naipaul. Patrick French. Picador, 2008.

Black Yeats: Eric Roach and the politics of Caribbean Poetry. Laurence A. Breiner. Peepal Tree, 2008.

Caribbean Literature After Independence: The Case of Earl Lovelace. Edited by Bill Schwartz. Institute for the Study of the Americas, 2008.

A Place in the World: Essays and Tributes in Honour of Earl Lovelace at 70. Edited by Funso Aiyejina. Port of Spain: Lexicon, Trinidad, 2008.

Writing Life: Reflections by West Indian Writers, Edited by Mervyn Morris & Carolyn Allen. Ian Randle Publishers, 2008.

Frank Collymore: a biography. Edward Baugh. Ian Randle Publishers, 2009.

Philosophy in the West Indian novel. Earl McKenzie. UWI Press, 2009.

Caribbean Middlebrow: Leisure Culture and the Middle Class. Belinda Edmondson. Cornell University Press, 2009.

Caribbean Women Writers: Essays from the First International Conference. Selwyn R. Cudjoe. University of Massachusetts, 2009.

Modernism, the Visual and Caribbean Literature. Mary Lou Emery. Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Bibliographies, Indexes, Reference materials:

Caribbean Writers: a Bio-Bibliographical-Critical Encyclopedia. Edited by Donald E. Herdeck. Three Continents Press, 1979.

“A Bibliography of Caribbean novels in English.” Samuel Bandara. The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 1980; 15:141-170.

Derek Walcott: An Annotated Bibliography of His Works. Irma Goldstraw. New York: Garland, 1984.

Fifty Caribbean Writers: a Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Edited by Daryl Cumber Dance. Greenwood Press, 1986.

West Indian Literature: an Index to criticism 1930-1975. Jeannette B. Allis. Boston: G. H. Hall, 1981.

Mitchell’s West Indian Bibliography, 2000-. 10^th edition. Don Mitchell. An online bibliography. Lists English language non-fiction from 1492 to the present.

Anglophone Caribbean Poetry 1970-2001: An Annotated Bibliography. Emily Allen Williams. Greenwood, 2002.

Encyclopedia of Latin American and Caribbean Literature 1900-2003. Edited by Daniel Balderston and Mike Gonzalez. Routledge, 2004.

6: Readings on The Historical, Cultural and Social background

The Traveller’s Tree. Patrick Leigh Fermor. Murray, 1950.

The Making of the West Indies. F.R. Augier et al. Longmans, 1960.

The Rastafari Movement in Kingston, Jamaica. M.G. Smith, Roy Augier, and Rex Nettleford. Kingston: Institute of Social and Economic Research, UWI, 1960.

Federation of the West Indies. Sir John Mordecai. Northwestern University Press, 1968.

The Growth of the Modern West Indies. Gordon K. Lewis (1919-1991). Monthly Review Press, 1968; Ian Randle Publishers, 2004.

The Groundings with my brothers. Walter Rodney (1942-1980). London: Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications, 1969. Reprint, 1990.

West Indian Societies. David Lowenthal. Oxford, 1972.

The Caribbean People, Books 1, 2, 3. Lennox Honychurch. Nelson Caribbean, 1979, 1980, 1981.

Contemporary Caribbean: A Sociological Reader. Two Volumes. Edited by Susan Craig. Port of Spain, 1981, 1982.

Main Currents in Caribbean Thought. Gordon K. Lewis (1919-1991). Heinemann, 1983.

The Caribbean: Survival, Struggle and Sovereignty. Catherine A. Sunshine. An EPICA Publication, 1985.

The Modern Caribbean. Edited by Franklin W. Knight and Colin A. Palmer. University of North Carolina Press, 1989.

C.L.R. James (1901-1989):

Beyond a Boundary. C.L.R. James. Serpent’s Tail, 1963.

The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. 2^nd Edition Rev. C.L.R. James. Vintage Books, 1989.

The CLR James Archive: A Reader’s Guide. Compiled by Anna Grimshaw. NY: CLR James Institute, 1991.

Special Delivery: The Letters of CLR James to Constance Webb 1939-1948. Edited by Anna Grimshaw & Constance Webb. Blackwell Publishers, 1995.

C.L.R. James: A Life. Farrukh Dhondy. Pantheon Books, 2002.

Letters from London (letters of C.L.R. James). Edited by Nicholas Laughlin. Prospect Press, 2003.

C.L.R. James: Cricket’s Philosopher King. Dave Renton. Haus Publishing, 2007.

Urbane Revolutionary: C.L.R. James and the Struggle for a New Society. Frank Rosengarten. University Press of Mississippi, 2007.

Whispers from a Continent: the Literature of contemporary Black Africa. Wilfred Cartey (1931-1992). Random House, 1969.

Whispers from the Caribbean: I going away, I going home. Wilfred Cartey (1931-1992). University of California, 1991.

From Columbus to Castro: the History of the Caribbean 1492-1969. Eric Williams (1911-1981). Andre Deutsch, 1970.

The Sociology of Slavery. Orlando Patterson (1940-). London, 1971.

“Is Massa Day Dead?: Black Moods in the Caribbean”. Edited by Orde Coombs (1939-1984). Anchor/Doubleday, 1974.

Bob Marley: Soul rebel-Natural Mystic. Adrian Boot & Vivien Goldman. EEL Pie Publishing/Hutchinson, 1981. [Photographs of Marley 1945-1981].

West Indians and their language. Peter Roberts. Cambridge, 1988.

The Trinidad Awakening: West Indian Literature of the Nineteen-Thirties. Reinhard W. Sander. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988.

Trinidad Carnival: a republication of the Caribbean Quarterly Trinidad Carnival Issue Vol. 4 (numbers 3&4), 1956. Port of Spain: Paria Publishing Company Limited, 1988.

The Caribbean: The Genesis of a Fragmented Nationalism. Franklin W. Knight. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Inward Stretch, Outward Reach: A Voice from the Caribbean. Rex Nettleford. London: Macmillan, 1993.

Noises in the blood: orality, gender and the vulgar body of Jamaican Popular Culture. Carolyn Cooper. Duke University Press, 1993.

Liberation Cricket: West Indies Cricket Culture. Edited by Hilary McD. Beckles and Brian Stoddart. Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers, 1995.

The Development of West Indies Cricket. Hilary McD. Beckles. Kingston: UWI Press, 1999.

Ethnic Minorities in Caribbean Societies. Edited by Rhoda Reddock. St. Augustine, Trinidad: Institute of Social and Economic Research, UWI, 1996.

Last Resorts: The cost of tourism in the Caribbean. Polly Pattullo. Monthly Review Press, 1996.

UNESCO General History of the Caribbean [6 titles Vols i-vi]. Volume III: The Slave societies of the Caribbean. Editor: Franklin W. Knight. Macmillan, 1997. Vol. 5: The Caribbean in the Twentieth century.

Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage. Richard Allsopp (1923-2009). Oxford, 1997.

The Trinidad Carnival: Mandate for a National Theatre. Errol Hill. London: New Beacon, 1997.

Catch A Fire: the Life of Bob Marley. Timothy White. Holt Paperbacks, 1998.

Before and after 1865: education, politics and regionalism in the Caribbean. Edited by Brian L. Moore and Swithin R. Wilmot. Ian Randle Publishers, 1998.

Chanting down Babylon: A Rastafari Reader. Edited by N. Samuel Murrel, William Spencer and Adrian Anthony. Ian Randle Publishers, 1998.

Caribbean Art. Veerle Poupeye. Thames & Hudson, 1998.

The Shaping of the West Indian Church 1492-1962. Arthur Charles Dayfoot. UWI Press, 1999.

On the canvas of the world. Edited by George Lamming. Published by the Trinidad and Tobago Institute of the West Indies, 1999. Contained are the two special issues of New World Quarterly, first published in February and November 1966 to mark the Independence of Guyana and Barbados. They were edited by George Lamming, Martin Carter and Edward Baugh.

Enterprise of the Indies. Edited by George Lamming. Published by the Trinidad and Tobago Institute of the West Indies, 1999. The material was first published in the Trinidad and Tobago Review. Contains poetry, prose, fiction and non-fiction by many leading writers and intellectuals.

Contending with destiny: The Caribbean in the 21^st Century. Edited by Kenneth Hall and Denis Benn. Ian Randle Publishers, 2000.

Caribbean Art Criticism: Fashioning a Language, forming a dialogue. Edited by Nick Whittle. Bridgetown: AICA Southern Caribbean, 2000.

New Caribbean Thought. Edited by Brian Meeks and Lindahl Folke. Kingston: UWI Press, 2001.

This is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica’s Music. Lloyd Bradley. Grove Press, 2001.

A History of West Indies Cricket. Revised Edition. Michael Manley with Donna Symmonds. Andre Deutsch, 2002.

Understanding the contemporary Caribbean. Edited by Richard S. Hillman and Thomas D’Agostino. Ian Randle Publishers, 2002.

Questioning Creole: Creolisation Discourses in Caribbean Culture. Edited by Verene Shepherd and Glen L. Richards. Ian Randle Publishers, 2002.

Paradise and Plantation: Tourism and Culture in the Anglophone Caribbean. Ian Gregory Strachan. University of Virginia Press, 2002.

The Caribbean: an Intellectual History 1774-2003. Denis M. Benn. Ian Randle Publishers, 2004.

Jamaican Dancehall Culture at large. Carolyn Cooper. Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

Rastafari: A universal philosophy in the third millennium. Edited by Werner Zips. Ian Randle Publishers, 2005.

Globalisation, Diaspora and Caribbean Popular Culture. Edited by Christine G. T. Ho and Keith Nurse. Ian Randle Publishers, 2005.

Rex N: Selected Speeches Rex Nettleford (1933–2010). Edited by Kenneth O. Hall. Ian Randle Publishers, 2005.

Shouts from the Outfield: The ArtsEtc Cricket Anthology. Edited by Linda M. Deane and Robert Edison Sandiford. AE Books, 2007.

Governing Sound: The Cultural Politics of Trinidad’s Carnival Musics. Jocelyne Guilbault. Ian Randle Publishers/University of Chicago Press (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology), 2007.

No Woman No Cry: My Life with Bob Marley. Rita Marley (with Hettie Jones). Hyperion, 2005.

Bob Marley: Lyrical Genius. Kwame Dawes. Bobcat Books, 2007.

Bob Marley: A Life (1945-1981). Garry Steckles. Macmillan Caribbean/Signal Books/Interlink Books, 2008.

Understanding the Contemporary Caribbean. 2^nd edition. Edited by Richard S. Hillman and Thomas J. D’Agostino. Lynne Reinner Publishers, 2009.

Imaging the Caribbean: Culture and Visual Translation. Patricia Mohammed. Macmillan Caribbean, 2010.

Compiled by John Robert Lee.

He is a published writer of prose, poetry, journalism, a librarian, and a radio and television broadcaster.

John Robert Lee’s latest publication is “elemental: new and selected poems, 1975-2007”. Peepal Tree Press, 2008.

Dana Gilkes, Angela Barry, Danielle Boodoo-Fortune, Curdella Forbes, the new generation of Caribbean writers.

Caribbean writers at Word Alive International Literary Festival, Saint Lucia, March 25th - 28th, 2010.

" Between us there are now" - In Memoriam, Pat Charles 1937-2010. My first editor and publisher.

2010-03-12T21:01:00.000-04:00

Between us there are now

so many dead familiar

so many thrusts of life made reap

and early harvest,

between us now, there are so many

vain regrets to founder on,

still too many needs

plunged in sand

lean clear as undecipherable tombsticks,

yet, Pat, now,

as admonitions from those grave

and watching shadows,

now come, one more time,

this pulsing vigour of these

so many brand new lives

between us now.

(c) John Robert Lee.

Photograph of Derek Walcott and other St. Lucian and Caribbean writers and theatre artists in Pat Charles house c. 1983. Pat is at far right, front row.

Canticle

2010-02-09T16:22:00.000-04:00

After poems, psalms. And canticles of island pilgrims

passing through self-important harbours, smoke-blue banana valleys,

villages lounging at the curves of bougainvillea lanes. Faith limns

your life salted by Atlantic trades, fretting with Creole violons,

the children gone to hard rock malls of Kingston and Flatbush.

O - in the beloved corner shrines of mango blossom, breadfruit palm, almonds' broad oval

leaf, the chapels of sidewalks' hasty awnings, the confessionals of indignant

minivans, the fuming censer of the streets' sulphur speech -

O, at every wary block - His Real Presence, and archangels gossiping of

His parousia. After poems, psalms. And your canticles.

(c) John Robert Lee. from Elemental: new and selected poems. Peepal Tree Press, 2008.

Photo (c) John Robert Lee. "After lunch" (2010).

"The Sacred in life and art"

2009-12-14T11:53:00.000-04:00

My friend Karen H. and I have never met. Not face to face. We began to correspond on email after we shared points of view on a discussion board of the Image magazine, possibly the leading U.S. faith and art periodical based in Seattle. This was a couple of years ago, and the friendship has endured the vagaries of cyber correspondence. K. doesn't say much about herself, but I glean from her comments and suggested readings that her interests are wide and varied - literature, photography, architecture, aboriginal peoples. She writes and I have seen two of her essays. She has strong political views (I read between her lines) of the conservative kind. I doubt Obama got her vote. She is also a strong Christian woman, with clear views of faith and the place of the Christian in the secular world. She worships with the American Orthodox churches.

I've grown to appreciate this kind-of-invisible, long distance friendship with someone of like mind. While I like to think my politics is slightly left of centre, more on the moderate side, I suspect I'd have to concede to her well-thought out, reasoned (not without passion) conservative opinions. I think she is someone who is courteous and respectful of other views, but will not hesitate to speak her mind forthrightly.

Since I've known her, she has sent me a number of books, most to do with classic Christian theology and literature. She knows my writing and related interests.

Anyway, I mention all this to say that Karen recently sent me "The Sacred in life and art" by Philip Sherrard (Golgonooza Press, 1990.) I had mentioned to her that I had been reading (slowly) Thomas Merton's meditations, The New Man. She was able to find and send me Merton's 1947 essay "Poetry and the contemplative life." This book by Sherrard perfectly complements Merton.

The Sherrard has been a revelation and comes to me at exactly the right time. The right time, as I spend some retreat searching my own faith and art, forms and content, the place of the Christian artist in church and world, the declining, profane world we all inhabit now - and make applications to my own life, faith, experience and work in my island home, Saint Lucia, Eastern Caribbean.

I haven't read a whole heap yet. One takes such a work slowly, chewing the intellectual cud. I suspect (and I may well have read this somewhere) that we respond enthusiastically to works of art and literature because they mirror, they echo, our own perspectives and convictions. So you can imagine how marked already every one of the 18 pages I've already read, are.

So, with thanks to Karen H, who is somewhere in Missouri, I'm sharing some of Sherrard's thoughts on the sacred and art:

"Yet by virtue of the fact that man is created in the image of God, he is also a creator, a maker, an artist. Indeed, this is his distinguishing role, that which is capable of making him holy. 'I will sing to my God so long as I live,' says the Psalmist; and it is this celebration of God, of His perfections and His beauty that constitutes our chief glory.....But if as maker the artist actually makes his artwork, and if that work does possess a more-than-aesthetic quality - does possess a sacred quality - then is not the artist something more than a priest and does he not himself make something that is sacred? Does he not himself make things beautiful, divinize nature, and in the end is he not himself a power that sheds a divine and transforming illumination?.....

Then, to add to the confusion, there is a great similarity between the aesthetic experience and the religious experience. Both can involve an attitude of contemplation, both may involve prayer and supplication. At its highest point, art aspires to a vision of the plenitude of being, to a vision of the world as it should be in its perfection. The true artist - I am speaking here only of the artist who does aspire to make his art a transforming power, to make the language of his art the signs of Paradise - will not see anything ugly in creation. Nor, bringing his light into the darkness, will he simply try to reproduce or copy what he sees. Rather he will try to see in all things their hidden beauty and to create in his art sensible forms which are receptacles of this ideal content.....Is not the art that achieves this a sacred art? Is not the artist who produces it at least a hierophant, a shower-forth of the sacred, if not in fact a maker of the sacred? Is not aesthetic practice, at this level, equivalent to religious practice?" (pgs 15,16).

from T.S. Eliot - East Coker (excerpts Section V)

2009-11-28T21:58:00.000-04:00

"So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years-
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres -
Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate - but there is no competition -
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again : and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
........"

(c) excerpted from T.S. Eliot. East Coker (Section V)

(c) Photograph: John Robert Lee - "my vernacular city"

Eliot of Four Quartets; Walcott of Midsummer, The Bounty, The Prodigal; Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey - such masters and their later works are now my inspiration and my aspiration for my own poems of faith. Thank you.

canticle xxii : resurrection of the katts

2009-10-27T09:04:00.000-04:00

The Apostle Paul writes in Romans 8:19, 21 : "For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God....because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God."

After the promised irruption of heaven into earth

and subsequent looting of the enemy's barrows,

imagine - the astounded hurtling of hawk, the disconcerted wonder of hen,

pup's amazement, astonished mule, kitten dumbfounded,

pipirit shocked! -

And then, the heirs of God, cerement free,

parading the blue air. So great leviathan, cattle, creeping thing, each to its kind,

rise without burden, with the lords of the air,

to come to their City, and their names calling out, from the

Lamb's opening Book.

Canticle xv

2009-10-26T20:57:00.000-04:00

Let us praise His Name with an opening lakonmet,
and in the graceful procession of weedova;
let laughing, madras-crowned girls rejoice before Him in the scottish
and flirtatious moolala, its violon hinting of heartache.
And while we forget time turning in quick-heeled polkas,
pause during the tentative norwegian -
for when the couples end the gwan won,
you alone must dance for Him your koutoumba.

(c) John Robert Lee from CANTICLES (2007)
(c) John Robert Lee - photograph, La Wenn Magrit.

Morne Gimie, Saint Lucia.

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air

In the blue-dyed surfing of air

an inverted rainbowl

perches its prismatic lips

across the gracious, steadfast earth,

and in Veronica's garden

a cavorting butterfly prevaricates

among the vanes

of pigeon-peas' yellow blossoms,

and across town,

you yearn after those sexy dancers

barrelling through space,

arching, escalating over breath.

Contemplating Morne Gimie's triple mornes,

I envision Him

taken from our clouding sight,

upon the elevating air.

Canticle liii

2009-10-12T21:02:00.000-04:00

"Because every fruit is a gift rising from the Eternal Seed

interred beyond the catacombs of exfoliating nebula,

encrypted in the woolen cerements folded like the ancient parchment of a deed

in the Hand of God, we sing this sedulous

faith. Handling such mysteries, probing parable and metaphor,

we arrived at this plain board (after the incredulous

hour) to find that urns of maize and grape had manifest

their witness into bread and wine. And fish."

Thomas Merton on the meaning of our existence

2009-10-08T16:13:00.000-04:00

In the blurb to Thomas Merton's meditations The New Man (1961) the writer says that Merton "shows the conflict between man's exterior and interior identity, and points the way the soul must travel to find its spiritual reality in the transcendent yet constantly present Self of God". A Commonweal quote says that the writer "has acquired a profound understanding of the peculiarly contemporary questions which demand an authentic Christian answer." In the first chapter of these meditations, titled "The war within us", Merton writes on the meaning of existence. "Man, then, can only fully be said to be alive when he becomes plainly conscious of the real meaning of his own existence...to find life we must die to life as we know it. To find meaning we must die to meaning as we know it....To find the full meaning of our existence we must find not the meaning that we expect but the meaning that is revealed to us by God. The meaning that comes to us out of the transcendent darkness of His mystery and our own. We do not know God and we do not know ourselves. How then can we imagine that it is possible for us to chart our own course toward the discovery of the meaning of our life? ...Meaning is then not something we discover in ourselves, or in our lives. The meanings we are capable of discovering are never sufficient. The true meaning has to be revealed. It has to be "given." And the fact that it is given is, indeed, the greater part of its significance: for life itself is, in the end, only significant in so far as it is given.
As long as we experience life and existence as suns that have to rise every morning, we are in agony. We must learn that life is a light that rises when God summons it out of darkness. For this there are no fixed times."

(c) Photograph "Untitled" by John Robert Lee

Seamus Heaney on poetry readings

2009-10-07T21:44:00.000-04:00

In Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney by Dennis O'Driscoll (Faber 2008), 1995 Nobel Laureate Heaney says the following about poetry readings: "In a good poetry reading - good for you, the poet, that is - you retrieve some of the quickening that you got when you first wrote the thing. The surprise and gratitude are with you again for a moment - the old sense of having been supplied with the words you needed to summon. You have an obligation as a poet not to betray the reality of that. You have been mysteriously recompensed by the words and you owe some fidelity to the mystery....So nowadays, every time I stand up I have been to the inside of what I hope to turn out, and feel both prepared and protected. Perhaps it's meditation by another name, but at this stage it's become a necessity. It means that each reading attains a sense of its own occasion. You may be speaking the same poems, but they are part of something intended, they aren't just inclusions in some accidental or incoherent bundle of things. It means you can give out and keep to yourself at the same time." pgs 203, 204.

(c) Photograph Red Top by John Robert Lee.

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2009-10-07T20:13:00.001-04:00

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2009-10-06T12:22:00.001-04:00

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2009-10-06T12:06:00.001-04:00

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Pomegranates and G. K. Chesterton

2009-10-05T17:41:00.001-04:00

"It is the simple truth that man does differ from the brutes in kind and not in degree; and the proof of it is here; that it sounds like a truism to say that the most primitive man drew a picture of a monkey and that it sounds like a joke to say that the most intelligent monkey drew a picture of a man. Something of division and disproportion has appeared: and it is unique. Art is the signature of man....All we can say of this notion of reproducing things in shadow or representative shape is that it exists nowhere in nature except in man; and that we cannot even talk about it without treating man as something separate from nature....an excellent test case of this isolation and mystery is the matter of the impulse of art. This creature was truly different from all other creatures; because he was a creator as well as a creature....man is the measure of all things; man is the image of God." - G.K. Chesterton in "The Everlasting Man" (1925). [Ignatius Press, 1993, pg 34, 35]

(c) John Robert Lee Photograph - "Pomegranates"

Still life

2009-10-05T17:13:00.001-04:00

I'm as ancient as I walk.

I have walked
in my time.

See,
even things set themselves.

Come,
we have to go out
and welcome the enemy.

In faded print,
all are equal.

The death mask is forming.

(c) John Robert Lee - excerpt from "Dread" in 'elemental: new and selected poems' (Peepal Tree, 2008)

(c) Photo by John Robert Lee

Dock

2009-10-05T16:53:00.001-04:00

Gregory Wolfe, the editor of IMAGE: A Journal of the Arts and Religion, writes in his excellent collection of IMAGE editorials - Intruding upon the timeless: meditations on Art, Faith and Mystery (Square Halo Books, 2003) - of "a hunger, on the part of both secularist and believer, for a deeper understanding of mystery, that borderland where reason fails and only faith and imagination can go." The IMAGE journal that he created sought to explore the "intersection between faith and imagination." He states that for him, "the first principle had to be aesthetic excellence: what we published had to be good art, able to stand alongside the best that was being produced...IMAGE had to be present on the public square, and not in some sort of self-imposed religious ghetto. For it is precisely in the imaginative space created by works of art that a diverse, multicultural society can explore religious matters without the divisiveness of polemics and propositions." He sees the collected editorials as meditations which attempt "to probe the ways that art and faith, poetry and prayer, can nourish and sustain one another." In a "fragmented and contentious world, art that engages faith can body forth an incarnational balance between the letter and the spirit, make ancient truths new, and allow the time-bound to briefly and tentatively intrude upon the timeless."
Greg Wolfe's meditations have been an inspiration to me as I probe my own experience of art, faith and mystery. I shall share more of his book from time to time.

(c) Photo: "Dock" by John Robert Lee

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from my Canticles (2007), poems and photos.

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Canticle lix

You must now enter the silence alone and listen. Wait.

Wait for the translation of the first line. Write.

Write with your fingers searching the pigments on the palate

for the essential shading of the right

image. The medium frames the sacred intercession.

To give face, posture, and voice to the holy is no trite

matter. And where humility unveils some gracious incarnation,

offer first this blessed sacrament to the King of saints.

from Canticles (2007)

Arts and Faith (Powered by Invision Power Board)

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Image: Art, Faith, Mystery

2009-09-25T11:16:00.001-04:00

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Reframing Human History | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

2009-09-23T21:03:00.001-04:00

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more work in progress

2009-09-22T11:14:00.000-04:00

At Mount Pleasant, St. Lucia

On the radio, classical music from horizon-clear Martinique.

Mid-December, mid-afternoon, light breezes under the over-spreading mango,

across envined palmiste, through the abandoned garden, and you imagine the shadows

lacquered, set. The antique

stone staircase reduced to one forlorn curve and a few broken flagstones

leans against the shade. In the frame, between grasses, is that an egret?

Pastoral pauses at Mount Pleasant, above Castries, in sight of Morne du Don villas,

high palms edging

the drift of hill across its barricade

of blue bent space.

Barack

Obama, certain strained friendships, the graduation of apprentices,

afternoon softening to pastel, numinous,

over Choc's procession of bright stones - what urgent

apocalypse hesitates to interrupt the coralita flirting among golden crotons?

On the radio, creole music of Malavoi from Martinique.

(c) John Robert Lee

from Thomas Merton

2009-09-21T13:10:00.000-04:00

from Thomas Merton's The New Man, 1961.
"The mark of true life in man is therefore not turbulence but control, not effervescence but lucidity and direction, not passion but the sobriety that sublimates all passion and elevates it to the clear inebriation of mysticism. The control we mean here is not arbitrary and tyrannical control by an interior principle which can be called, variously, a "super-ego" or a pharisaical conscience: it is the harmonious coordination of man's powers in striving for the realization of his deepest spiritual potentialities. It is not so much a control of one part of man by another, but the peaceful integration of all man's powers into one perfect actuality which is his true self, that is to say his spiritual self." pg12.

Wordsworth spoke of "emotion recollected in tranquillity", Eliot of "the still point." And Frost wrote of the "momentary stay against confusion."

(c) photograph by John Robert Lee. In Canticles (2007).

work in progress

2009-09-21T12:48:00.000-04:00

Incarnation

-Hebrews 2:14

Out of the creeping undergrowth of manuscripts

words line themselves with the body of the page

immaculately. Leaving decorated margins

of our modest codex, we ache to glimpse the enraptured

end of the art of faith. In the font's innocent concavities

we imagine bold faces of eager messengers.

At the edge of improbable translation, we are assuaged

by incredible epiphanies cradling

in paperback covers.

Herod's night raiders read

Bethlehem right. The local chapter of Moloch

plots the setting of the star. Mythology

parses into facts: angels, shepherds, feeding trough -

where, in this part of the prologue,

the Death Eater's mother paraphrases His gurgles to the kneeling kings.

(c) John Robert Lee from work in progress.

(c) Photograph by John Robert Lee.

Festival of Faith

2009-09-17T14:36:00.001-04:00

Festival of Faith & Writing

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September 7th 2001

2009-09-11T15:17:00.000-04:00

A few days before 9/11 we were visiting the Science Museum in New Jersey. Across the water, behind our backs, stood the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre. That was Thursday. The following Tuesday we were at a church conference in Seaside Heights, NJ, when 9/11 happened.

Signing on

2009-09-11T13:09:00.000-04:00

On this 9/11, eight years on, I'm signing on for the Blog experience. We'll see how it goes. I want to think through issues of faith and art, with special interest in the Caribbean historical context. I am a Christian writer - meaning that my writing (poetry and prose) is influenced by my orthodox, Protestant Christian faith. My accompanying interests in media and education will no doubt impinge on the thinking through.
Question: Where are the Caribbean Christian artists, epecially writers - in a region that has been predominantly influenced by Christianity? How is their faith reflected in their work? The Christian literary tradition is a great one. One can find in the international sphere a few serious journals that follow the meeting of faith and art. I think of IMAGE from Seattle, Washington. In the contemporary Caribbean, increasingly secular (though still very religious) where are the Christian artists? I'm talking about serious artists and writers - concerned about craft and shaping, for whom their faith in Christ is also crucial. Where is the dialogue? Where is the interchange? I think of pioneers like AJ Seymour (Guyana) and John Figueroa (Jca), Literary icons of the Caribbean and men of deep faith. There must be more. I'd like to identify them. And my contemporaries. Final note: I've known of the late Thomas Merton, the writer and Trappist Monk. Have had his famous Seven storied Mountain, but not read it. recently found his The New Man (1961) and am entranced. They are his Pascal-like meditations. Years ago Lorna Goddison had encouraged that I read him. Well, I'm on now. So where are our own genre of religious meditations? That is a whole area, faith writings, waiting to be discovered and explored by Caribbean writers.
Finally, finally, while I speak so much of Caribbean, I read and think through widely.
On this 9/11, 09, may the Lord Jesus bless the venture. Come Holy Spirit, Father. "Rest our hopes fully on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ."