VISION April Issue 2020

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Photo credit: Teddy Dwight Frederick VISION MAGAZINE

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The Butler Group Mission Statement

Formed for the purpose of advancing the economic liberation of the Grenadian populace, The Butler Group, comprised of patriotic Grenadians at home and in the diaspora, deems it vital and strategic in the solemn interest of national development and security that a comprehensive home ownership programme (as outlined in the proposal: A Viable Plan for Grenada) be adopted by our national government and sustained with the use of the commonwealth of the tri-island state, as it will literally and figuratively give workers and their families a floor to stand on and a roof over their heads, in an increasingly complex and precarious global environment.

Such project stands to be our most immediate economic engine, with the capacity to create 100% employment and boost the spending power of workers/citizens in dramatic fashion. Empowered workers are the true wealth of a just society is our mantra.

To effectively and efficiently engage and thus give greater life to this plan, members are principally tasked with the mission of informing and educating the Grenadian public as to why it is vital that workers of limited means be afforded a home using the commonwealth of the tri-island state, in a global environment as it is: rife with strife; thus, only aiding the precarious socioeconomic environment in which workers and their families find themselves.

The generation and dissemination of literature utilizing various media platforms, including online and traditional formats, is crucial in the effort to sustain a protracted grassroots campaign, to ensure such conversation that we are seeking to have with our people will advance the social conscience and consciousness of the nation at large.

In engaging the Grenadian populace, the principle of non-partisanship and nonalignment will be adhered to by its leadership team when carrying out the identified aims of the group, in order to prevent and rebuff possible attempts to dilute and misrepresent the aim of the Butler Plan & Project by potential non-supporters and distractors. The backing of The Butler Plan & Project by ordinary Grenadian citizens is the initial aim of our campaign, for there is no movement (literally and figuratively) without their support, as well as its protection from potential distractors at home and abroad.

Withstanding that there are numerous angles to view national development and security as there are conceivable plans, The Butler Group conceives of workers and their ability to have a greater stake in the ownership and governance of a democratic society to be of supreme importance in the shared task of national development and security.

Our relationship is directly with the Grenadian People, and thus the general posture of a pressure/advocacy group is key when engaging in dialogues with other representative bodies and actors, namely politicians and their respective parties, trade unionists, and the national government.

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F EATU R E D 09

Editor’s Note

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How Europe Underdeveloped the Caribbean by Ahmed Reid

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In the Spirit of Butler: A speech by Maurice Bishop

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Grenada Invitational by Dexter Mitchell

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Grenada Invitational: An Outside Perspective by Haron Forteau

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Grenada Sailing Week by Rosie Burr

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Grenada Sailing Festival by Louay Habib

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The Resurgence of Sailing in Gouyave by Shon Marshall

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Grenada Chocolate Festival and Turning your Passion into Profit by Sherry Hamlet

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Getting to the Root of Veganism in Grenada by Bontrice Hutton

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Bryan Bullen to Represent Grenada at the Biennale Architettura in Venice by Asher Mains

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1261 Film Festival 2020 by Meschida Philip

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Ear for the Otherwise: A Tribute to Edward Kamau Braithwaite by Nijah Cunningham

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Caribbean Citizen/Human – a lyric; reasoning: Negus and me by Roger Bonair-Agard

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Great Quotes

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Poetry by Bassanio Graneau, Vladimir Lucien, and Lumumba Shabazz

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Not for Everyday Use: Featuring an excerpt from Elizabeth Nunez’s memoir

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Teddy Dwight Frederick Art

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Poetry by Frank Scott and Roger Bonair-Agard VISION MAGAZINE

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EDITOR’S NOTE Art-felt!

In VISION, there is always a celebration of the arts; and this April 2020 Issue is no different. On this occasion, we celebrate the life of a great Caribbean citizen and poet in that of Edward Kamau Braithwaite, who joined the ancestors on February 4th. Hence two tributes were commissioned to mark this occasion. Nijah Cunningham and Roger Bonair-Agard would have answered the call: one committed an email to the late figure and the other a lyric essay, as they seek to share with us his great contribution to their personal lives and the region on a whole.

Moreover, you might have noticed the rather unusual rendering of a cover to this issue. For such, we thank the vision of multidisciplinary artist and curator Teddy Dwight Frederick. The introduction of Teddy’s work in VISION became a priority the very first opportunity I had to view it (of all places, social media). Teddy is undoubtedly no stranger to the growing art scene in Grenada, for he is well acquainted and have worked with many of the artists and other collaborators on the island. As a platform that puts great emphasis on the arts, we certainly could not miss the opportunity to showcase his work to our audience. His art is delightful as it is provocative to experience. Perhaps this is the best time on the calendar to do so, since we are in an extra celebratory mood this spring (at least until everything is being turned upside down due to COVID-19).

Art is the celebration of life. Then again, one may declare that life is simply art, in how we continually represent who we are and how we come to be who we are. ‘Not for Everyday Use’, a memoir by novelist and Distinguished Professor of English at the City University of New York, Elizabeth Nunez, which we feature a richly-textured excerpt from, gives credence to both facets of thought. As a former student of hers, I am very happy to reconnect with her at this juncture for this issue of VISION. It was her who first mentioned Braithwaite’s name to me, as is the case with the term cannon (to mean a body of high-quality literature, music, philosophy and art), in my course study on World Literature (I believe “cannon” was aptly mentioned in the course’s title). I sensed she would insert Braithwaite as her way of contrasting that which was given by our colonizers, as the radical new approach being forged by this remarkable brother and others with similar purpose and mission, and ultimately to denote our separation from a ruthless and paternalistic order by way of the British system of control. It was the consummate break from Homer’s Odyssey and the Iliad, during class discussions.

Those European classics were so engrossing that we never quite delved into Braithwaite’s work, outside of the mention of a title here and there with an accompanying line or two and what he means to a Caribbean Cannon. I would later come across reference to his work in our late Prime Minister Maurice Bishop’s speeches.

Like professor Nunez, Bishop would take every opportunity to signal the importance of Braithwaite’s work to the spirit of our oneness and our rich traditions. I have yet to immerse myself in his work to any significant degree. I guess my own preoccupation with the social sciences by and large has not directed me to much of the literary work of our Caribbean masters (not to say that they don’t relate, because they very much do). I shall get there in due course!

May Day is around the corner, so we certainly want to take the opportunity to reignite the vision and spirit of Bishop and simultaneously my dear, late granduncle Tubal Uriah “Buzz” Butler, in featuring Bishop’s address on the opening of the Third Trade Union Conference of the Unity and Solidarity of Caribbean Workers, at the Dome in St. George’s, November 18th, 1981. The said speech is entitled ‘In the Spirit of Butler: Unionize, Mobilize, Democratize!!’ We certainly want to reflect on the importance of workers’ unity and solidarity in the great struggle for a just and equitable society and world. And, of course, this could only come about with the push for greater expressions and concrete representations of democracy in the society and greater world.

There is much more in store. I hope I would have whetted your appetite for the scrumptious offering to follow.

Be safe, everyone!

Yours truly,

Yao Atunwa Editor New York City, March, 2020 9

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How Europe Underdeveloped the Caribbean WRITTEN BY AHMED REID

In a recent article published in The Gleaner titled ‘Caribbean expats mean much to Britain’, Lord Tariq Ahmad, the British minister of state with responsibility for the Caribbean, Commonwealth and the United Nations, took the opportunity to highlight the sterling contribution of the Windrush Generation to the UK’s post-World War II development.

Lord Ahmad’s history lesson should not be discounted.

We recall that on his visit to Jamaica in 2017, he stated that “it would be better for Jamaica to look ahead and to maximize its potential through robust trade rather than to peer into history .... I think it’s not important looking back in history .... It’s about looking forward”. In other words, Jamaicans should forget Nanny, forget Chief Tacky, forget Sam Sharpe, forget Ann James, forget Paul Bogle, forget the hundreds of men and women who were hanged in Montego Bay (1832) and Morant Bay (1865), and I dare say forget

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Ahmed Reid is a lecturer of the City University of New York and visiting professor at the Centre for Reparation Research at the UWI. This article first appeared in The Gleaner on April 15, 2018.

Marcus Garvey, Norman Manley and Alexander Bustamante. After all, they all belong to the past.

Lord Ahmad is not alone.

So, we must ask ourselves, why is Lord Ahmad now peering into history?

IMPACT ON JAMAICANS

Lord Ahmad’s selective use of history brings to the surface the politics of memory and memorialization. It raises important questions as to who determines a nation’s collective memory?

Who determines whom they should remember and memorialize, and when? The attempt to shape Jamaica’s collective memory is clear from Lord Ahmad’s statement last year, but it is more evident when one reads his history of the Windrush Generation.

The real purpose of the article, it seems, is to remind Jamaicans (and Caribbean people) of the UK’s benevolence to the region. UK aid is “promoting growth; and creating jobs”, he opined, and Jamaica “is the largest beneficiary in the region, receiving a total of more than J$9 billion (£53 million).”

Recently, Ambassador Malgorzata Wasilewska, head of the European Union’s (EU) delegation to Jamaica, pointed to the 1.5 billion euros in development assistance that Jamaica has got from the EU over the last 43 years. The EU has followed this up with television ads outlining its programmes and their impact on the lives of Jamaicans.

Why the reminder? The answer is simple: Jamaicans should never forget Europe’s benevolence. Europe’s benevolence is what is worth remembering, not our African ancestors who stood on the right side of history to fight the brutal system of enslavement unleashed on them by colonial Europe.

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acknowledgement of why Jamaica and its CARICOM partners face such serious development challenges. There is no acknowledgement, for example, of how European colonialism underdeveloped the Caribbean. There is no acknowledgement that the lack of social and economic growth that confronts Caribbean people are structurally linked to their colonial past.

An acknowledgement of this, coupled with a pledge to repair the harm done, should be the first point of reference in any serious and meaningful discussion on confronting the challenges the Caribbean faces in this long 21st century.

If we “peer into history”, we will conclude that Europe’s enslavement and exploitation of Africans and their descendants, and their exploitation of the region’s resources have damaged the Caribbean’s development prospects.

Facing or even accepting these difficult truths, according to Baroness Howells in her contribution to the British House of Lords Debate on the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade (2007), is “always hard, especially if they have been ignored, willed away or relegated to an historical backwater”.

Professor Catherine Hall of the Legacies of British Slave-Owners Project stated in England’s Guardian newspaper in February 2013: “...

Forgetting the violence, pain and shame that is an inevitable part of any country’s historical record is a crucial aspect of a nation’s history. ...

Forgetting Britain’s role in the slave trade began as soon as the trade was abolished in 1807.” This, she said, was done “deliberately by occluding the archival record .... The disavowal of the past is an active process”.

WALL OF SILENCE Many critical Caribbean thinkers, past and present, have worked hard to end the social and cultural forces that have conspired to create a wall of silence around the period of enslavement, colonialism and its harmful legacies. They have shown the direct link between historical injustices and underdevelopment throughout the region.

Such link was also highlighted at the United Nations World Conference against Racism, 11

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Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa, in 2001.

The outcome document, the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, stated: “... Historical injustices have undeniably contributed to poverty, underdevelopment, marginalization, social exclusion, economic disparities, instability and insecurity that affect many people in different parts of the world, in particular in developing countries; and recognized the need to develop programmes for the social and economic development of these societies.”

The process of underdevelopment started in 1492 when Christopher Columbus, travelling under the patronage of Spain, invaded Hispaniola.

Spain, along with its European neighbors, created sites of exploitation in the region. They exploited the indigenous people that ultimately led to their decline.

European countries such as Spain, England, France, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany (Brandenburg-Prussia) actively participated, invested financially, and benefited from the violent uprooting, trafficking, and exploitation of enslaved Africans. Spain, Portugal, France and England accounted for over 90% of the trade.

Together, these countries conceptualized and then used enslaved African labor as its principal mode of production.

Trinidadian scholar Lloyd Best sums it up well: “Metropolitan interest is not so much in land as a productive asset, as in the organization of people to facilitate the redistribution and transfer of wealth.”

Entire industries such as shipbuilding, insurance, warehousing, metallurgy, and banking emerged in these European countries. Historians such as Eric Williams (Capitalism and Slavery, 1944) and Joseph Inikiori (Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England, 2002) have shown these linkages as providing the scaffold for Europe’s industrial advancement. No such industries emerged in the Caribbean.

While Europe developed through colonial exploitation, the plantation system that they created defined the social and economic growth outcomes of Caribbean people. In plantation societies, race and class hierarchy (which persists today) determined one’s growth prospect. Case

in point: From the post-Emancipation period onward, the developing peasantry, comprising mostly black Jamaicans, was thwarted by a colonial system that supported and facilitated land consolidation by the socially and politically connected elites.

Not given access to land, social and economic growth was difficult to attain by the citizenry.

Black Jamaicans were denied the opportunity to show their creativity in the productive sphere and to enjoy the growth benefits associated with it.

Resources, sadly, remained in the hands of a few.

HARMFUL LEGACY The edifice that colonialism erected did not facilitate the development of Jamaica’s human and social capital. This has been a very harmful legacy, the consequences of which manifest itself daily. Underdevelopment is further evident in the creation of economies that were structurally dependent on sugar and banana. An overreliance on these exports and the continued dependence on British and European markets when colonization ended have been harmful legacies.

Innovation was never encouraged. Alternative industries to sugar and banana were never sought and emerging market trends were never embraced. A weak and uncompetitive economy is our present reality. We have also been saddled with weak institutions that continue to be a drag on our development prospects.

Professor Rex Nettleford once reminded us that “one does not drive without checking one’s rearview mirror”. Lord Ahmad, for Caribbean people, “it’s about looking forward”, but we do so with an understanding of the factors that have led to our present state. It is for this reason that CARICOM has proposed a comprehensive Ten-Point Plan for Reparatory Justice that is aimed at repairing the harmful damages caused by European colonialism.

As a conceptual framework, it will harness and strengthen the region’s human and social capital, and promote economic growth. The Caribbean deserves this. Rather than stand aside and criticize those who are fighting for Jamaica’s right to reparatory justice, all Jamaicans should align themselves with the movement and stand on the right side of history in this International Decade for People of African Descent.

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IN THE SPIRIT OF BUTLER, UNIONIZE! MOBILIZE! DEMOCRATIZE! An excerpted speech from In Nobody’s Backyard: Maurice Bishop’s Speeches 1979 - 1983 (Third World Books); an Address by Comrade Maurice Bishop on the opening of the Third Trade Union Conference of the Unity and Solidarity of Caribbean Workers, at The Dome, St. George’s, 18 November 1981 (with consent from editor Chris Searle).

Comrades, if we were to study the history of this country, Grenada, we would find that the central theme that has characterized the lives of our people over the centuries has been resistance. Our people have struggled at many times and in many ways.

From the stubborn refusal of the Grenadian Caribs to accept a colonial stranglehold over their island; through the constant pattern of slave revolts which culminated in the mass upsurge led by Julien Fedon 1795, which for two years brought Grenada a determined, militant independence; through the years of anticolonial agitation and the eloquent leadership of T.A. Marryshow; through the two great popular uprising of 1951 and 1973-74 to climax in the March 13 revolution of 1979 – Grenadians have always resisted domination, injustice, and exploitation. Our great Caribbean poet, Edward Kamau Brathwaite, himself a Barbadian, has likened this spirit of permanent struggle to the dramatic and sublime peaks which tower along the spine of our island. And it is into this tradition of resistance that we must place the growth and development of our trade union movement.

We have produced here in Grenada perhaps the greatest, the most brilliant and audacious of pioneer Caribbean trade unionists. I am referring, of course, to Tubal Uriah “Buzz” Butler, that huge, monumental igniter of the spirit of the Caribbean masses, who,

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born in Grenada, moved to Trinidad to accomplish his great deeds of leadership of the burgeoning Caribbean working class. His volcanic influence there sent our entire region throbbing with a new will and resistance, which soon broke out through all our islands.

But let it also be said that we produced Eric Matthew Gairy, perhaps the most degenerate and decadent manipulator and corruptor of the trade union movement that our islands have ever spawned.

Butler vs. Gairy: To say them with the same breath makes one gasp! But we have seen both their traditions and disciples alive in our Caribbean. Our duty now is to strive to emulate the one and make certain that the other will never be recreated! Certainly, we must also remember how Butler was sought, hunted, and hounded by British colonialism and the employing class that saw him as their greatest menace, how they imprisoned him, interned him, but could never smother or even dim his enormous determination and luster! And certainly we must also remember how this opposite lied, bribed, bludgeoned, and murdered in his path to power, and how the consequences of that misrule strewed hurricane wreckage through our nation and working people that he claimed to represent, so much so that nearly three years after the revolution that ended his sordidness forever in our country, we are still cleaning up the devastation he caused to our national life

and economy.

So we have known only too well this type of bogus trade unionism in Grenada, and we have lived through the ghastly damage it caused to our country and people. And we also know how much our real, genuine, patriotic trade unionists fought against such deformity when its political arm came to power with the Gairy neocolonial dictatorship, which lasted for over two decades here in Grenada. For right through these years of struggle, our militant, selfless trade unionists fought gallantly against Gairy’s terror, squandermania, and neglect of the rights of workers, even though he could also count, through that period, upon certain sections of the trade union leadership to sell out the masses at crucial points of their struggle, as he had done himself in 1951, and as conciliators did again in April 1974.

TRADE UNIONS AGAINST THE DICTATORSHIP Gairy’s neocolonial dictatorship introduced several draconian laws that were clearly anti-worker and were aimed at muzzling and straightjacketing any threatening action from our trade unions. The 1974 Public Order (Amendment) Act prohibited trade unions, as well as other organizations, from using public address systems. The next year he passed the Newspaper (Amendment) Act, which without just cause effectively forbade trade unionists and other workers’ organizations from publishing their own newspapers. Then the Essential Services Act of 1978 was passed, particularly against the prospect of members of the Technical and Allied Workers’ Trade Union taking industrial action. Significantly, the leadership of this union, notoriously inactive, did nothing to challenge the passage of a law which was designed to render them impotent. This was hardly surprising when we understand that the leadership of this union was in the hands of the same man who acted as the ‘Research and Education Officer’ of the American Institute of Free Labour Development in the Eastern Caribbean. But other unions and the political leadership of NJM fought on behalf of their brothers and sisters in the union, comrades, and when Gairy tried to extend the law to include the dockworkers – who proved to be the most militant section of the urban working class under the dictatorship – they never allowed

the amendment to be implemented. For it was a common feature of those years that the workers themselves would take industrial action in the absence of or in defence of their conciliatory leadership. This was perhaps best seen in the 1973-4 period when the workers had to force the hand of their leaders to strike, and simultaneously resist the propaganda and persuasion techniques of the AFL-CIO. Comrades, it is important to note that all this activity and struggle within our trade union movement was taking place against a backdrop of massive repression that was building up in our country, in all aspects and spheres of the people’s lives. The dictator was making a systematic and comprehensive attack on all the rights and freedoms that our people had campaigned for and won over the years of British Colonialism. The freedom to live any sort of decent life, all this was being ripped from us. The elections that were organized were rigged and farcical: a mockery of the democracy that our people truly aspired to reach. When we moved to protest or organize against the decay of life we saw around us, we were hounded by paid bandits who battered, bruised and murdered some of our most valued and courageous comrades.

Life itself was being torn away from us, piece by piece, in the growing fear and reality of repression.

Our youth saw desolation around them in a hopeless search for jobs. Our women faced sexual abuse and exploitation in the daily struggle to keep their dignity. A youth like Jeremiah Richardson was shot, point-blank, in the streets of Grenville because he sought to question a policeman’s abuse. A boy, Harry Andrew, was killed because he climbed over a wall in a calypso tent. Harold Strachan, Allister Strachan, Rupert Bishop all heroically sought to challenge the ebbing away of freedom and the right to live, and they all fell before the horrendous rule of terror and corruption which characterized our country during those years. Our people lived in an ethos of death and tyranny, when honest people disappeared mysteriously, the only fate of Inspector Bishop of the Carriacou Police, or the four youths tending goats on Frigate Island. Comrades, to be an active, combative and militant trade unionist during that portion of our history was to court this danger and violence. Militancy meant a challenge to death and an assertion of everything that was hopeful and positive and which could

reconstruct life and happiness for our people.

THE WORKER FOUGHT BACK But as the dictator tried to tighten its grip on the lives of the Grenadian people, more and more democratic and progressive fighters were elected to the leadership of our trade unions. By 1978 the Executive of the Commercial and Industrial Workers Union was demonstrating this and Gairy was answering by trying to crush the union. Resolutions were being passed by the Executive against Gairy’s ties with the butchers of Chile and the visit of Pinochet’s torture ship, the Esmeralda, to our shores. The dictator realized he was not dealing with the previous pattern of pliable and opportunistic leadership. The only price of these new comrades was freedom! So he went directly to the employers, trying to persuade and bribe them to compel their workers to join his union, even though these employers had already signed agreements with the Commercial and Industrial Workers Union [CIWU]. He also attempted to force CUWU members directly to change union, but because of the respect they had for the consistent and principled hard work and positions of the new CIWU leadership, they were not moved.

Over the years our Caribbean trade union movement has constantly been the target of that most unscrupulous arm of imperialism: the Central Intelligence Agency. We had had rare instances of our trade union leaders consciously selling out for their silky bribes and offerings, but more usually the CIA, with its sophistication and enormous financial resources, has succeeded in manipulating and infecting unwitting trade unionists who may well have been continuing with their work with the best of intentions. In doing this, the CIA has sometimes directly infiltrated and controlled some section of our movement, and thus forced the leadership of some of our unions to actually take anti-worker positions.

This has happened, we know, in Grenada, and more and more of our workers are becoming conscious of this danger to their hopes.

We saw how the CIA actually succeeded in turning back the progress of the organized workers’ movement in Chile, by both open and covert activity, and we in the Caribbean must be particularly vigilant in recognizing their position and subversion of the workers’ cause, for imperialism will never rest in its VISION MAGAZINE

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resolution to crush the onward march of the progress and emancipation of our struggling people.

For on the day that the Revolution triumphed, Marcy 13th, 1979, trade unionists from all over the country showed direct support for and involvement in the revolutionary events. The Telephone company workers, for example, were contacting and radioing our security forces to tell them of the whereabouts of Gairy’s ministers, and trade unionists and workers generally all over the country left their work-places to take up arms to end forever the power of oppression that had constantly tried to thwart the free aspirations and genuine and constructive organization of our Grenadian workers.

Since our revolution most of the old, corrupt union leadership has been thrown into the dustbin of history, for because of their growing consciousness, our workers can now contrast and see who is bringing benefits to them and who is not, who is desperately trying to maintain the old pattern of dictatorship and

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who is in the forefront of the struggle to bring more democracy into our trade unions.

What we are seeing more and more in Grenada is that the objectives of the Revolution and the objectives of the trade union movement in our country are one and the same. Thus, any antagonisms between them are opportunities for the trade union movement to accomplish its tasks of building the emancipation, security and prosperity of the working people, the identical will of the Revolution itself.

MEMBERSHIP AND DEMOCRACY Let us consider the massive rise in membership since the Revolution, of the most militant and democratic unions. On March 13th, 1979, the Bank and General Workers’ Union had some hundred members. It now has about 3,000. It has spread out from its birthplace at Barclays Bank to the banana boxing plants, the nutmeg pools, the restaurants and hotels, the factories and workshops. Its tradition of hones and

consistent struggle on behalf of its members has made it the largest union in the country.

The Commercial and Technical and Allied Workers’ Union has had over 50% increase in membership, and the General Workers’ Union had risen from scratch to its present level of 2,300 members. We had a huge, symbolic demonstration of our increased trade union membership and power in this year’s May Day celebrations. It was the biggest ever May Day turn out in the history of Grenada, and the seemingly endless procession of organized workers wound around the steep streets of our capital.

Along with the sudden explosion in the membership of our unions is the emphasis the new leadership is putting on their democratization. This is very much allied to the general thrust in democracy right through our society since the Revolution, in all structures of mass organizations, community groups and the other organs of our people’s power. As we have seen, before the Revolution there was a tradition in some unions of few or no General Meetings.

Following the Revolution we have seen a massive new interest in trade unionism as Grenadians saw new hope and strength in cooperative and collective democratic solutions to their problems. At the first General Meeting of the Commercial and Industrial Workers’ Union after the Revolution, in July 1979, there was over 100% increase in the attendance.

Two hundred and ninety members came and voted 246 to 44 in favor of a militant, democratic leadership as against the previous conciliatory and conservative type, even though the latter had organized and conducted the elections.

What is happening now in our country, is that everybody is becoming affected by the dialectic of democratic participation that is sweeping through our villages and workplaces. Involvement in another. A worker who attends a Worker’s Parish Council hears something which he wants to bring to his trade union. So he goes to the meeting of his union, although he may not have attended one for years. And when he finds, quite surprisingly, that his union is taking a vibrant, democratic direction, he involves himself in one of its new seminars. His confidence is raised through all this activity and the speaking and organizing that goes along with it, and his appetite is whetted to join one of the mass organizations – the local Party Support Group, the Militia, House Repair Programme, or for the sisters, the National Women’s Organization. Each organization feeds strength, power and confidence into the next, and all of them, including the trade unions, grow in real potency and democratic advancement.

And now we see Workers’ Parish Councils splitting into Zonal Councils, in a new sprouting of decentralized democracy right through our nation, a reflection of a similar tendency that is happening within our progressive trade unions.

NEW LEGISLATION The People’s Revolutionary Government has been swift to take legislative action in favor of the trade unions. All Gairy’s anti-worker laws were repealed and two months after the Revolution, in May 1979, People’s Law Number 29, the Trade Union Recognition Law, was passed. For the first time in Grenada’s history, our workers had the opportunity to join the union of their choice, and the employer was

compelled to recognize the trade union once 51% of his workforce were financial members.

Under this law, the Ministry of Labour has to respond within seven days of the Union’s application for recognition, and then call a poll of workers. If the majority is shown to be members, then the union must be certified as the bargaining agent for the workers. For, apart from Barclays, before the Revolution there were other grotesque examples of non-recognition of trade unions. The worker at the Red Spot Drink Factory had a 100% financial membership of the Commercial and Industrial Workers’ Union in 1978, but the company still refused recognition, and it took the workers at Bata some 17 years of struggle before they finally won recognition.

So this law has changed all those old abuses and given the workers real and genuine security in making their trade unions effective bargaining agents on behalf of their workers.

For the sister trade unionists, the 1980 Maternity Leave Law has made an enormous difference to their working and personal lives.

Every working woman now has the right to two months’ paid maternity leave over the period of birth of any child. And the trade unions were involved, together with the mass organizations, particularly the National Women’s Organization, and the churches, in the widespread consultation conducted all over the nation before the bill was finally passed. The Equal Pay for Equal Work Decree in the state sector has also had a profound effect in improving the wages of the sisters and levelling them up with those of their brother workers throughout Grenada – as well as increasing their general confidence to organize and struggle side by side, with their brothers. For now both men and women are sharing equality in the improvement in wages and conditions being brought about since the Revolution. The old, appalling working conditions and lack of facilities like no drinking water or worker’s amenities in workplaces, compulsory overtime without pay and no job security are now doomed.

The recent successful strike of agricultural workers in the St. Andrew’s Parish, waged by members of the Agricultural and General Workers’ Union, is proof of this. The comrades achieved their demands of holiday and sick leave pay under the new democratic leadership of their new union.

At this moment arising from a decision of the St. George’s Workers’ Parish Council, and based on requests from trade unions, the

Ministry of Legal Affairs had prepared two pieces of legislations – a Rent Control Law to ease the burden of high rent costs for our people and a new Workman’s Compensation Act, both of which will be circulated to our unions for their comments before enactment.

NEW ATTITUDES Of course, you would know how closely higher productivity and trade union organization are connected. More than two decades of Gairyism produced in our workers many negative attitudes. The new trade unionism in our country is now helping to transform such attitudes by helping to apply new incentives.

Before the Revolution our agricultural estates brought in absurdly low returns. They were making only a quarter of a million dollars, even though their yearly expenditure was nearly three million. Now, from being a national liability they have become profitable, and the workers themselves have shared in that success, taking one-third of the profits made. This new attitude has grown through the spirit of emulation that the works have adopted as a result of those seminars. The Age of Cynicism is gone in Grenada.

Workers in a revolutionary country like ours, who are under a progressive and democratic leadership in their unions, do not see Trade Unionism solely in a narrow, economic sense. They do not see their responsibilities stopping only at these fundamental tasks of improving their members’ wages and working conditions. They see themselves deeply involved in all aspects of the social and political life of their country, their region and their world. Our unionized workers have consistently shown solidarity with other struggling workers of the world. They see this as an internationalist duty to political justice, be they in Chile, El Salvador, South Africa, the Middle East or any part of the world where the producers of wealth are exploited and oppressed. They see their responsibility, likewise with the other trade unionists of the Third World, in pressing for the New International Economic Order that will create more favorable terms of trade between rich and poor nations and transfer wealth and technology for the benefit of the masses in countries such as ours.

*The speech was abridged.

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GRENADA INVITATIONAL WRITTEN BY DEXTER MITCHELL, CHAIRMAN

PHOTOGRAPHY BY HARON FORTEAU

Going into its 4th year, the Grenada Invitational is now widely recognized as one of the most important athletics meets in the Caribbean and certainly attaining similar status globally.

As part of its thrust to provide more competition and earning opportunities for athletes globally, World Athletics (formally the IAAF) has reformatted the track and field meets circuit.

In addition to the well-established and lucrative Diamond League meets, there are now World Athletics Continental Tours meets.

The World Continental Tours are sub-divided into Gold, Silver, and Bronze categories. Globally there are 10 Gold level meets, with each meet offering prize monies in excess of US$200,000. Additionally, there are 10 Silver level meets with each of these meets offering prize monies in excess of US$75,000, and over 50 Bronze level meets with prize monies on offer of US$25,000 and up.

In 2020, the other Silver Level meets will be held in Jamaica, Australia, Brazil, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Italy and Germany.

The inaugural Grenada Invitational took place on April 8th, 2017, with the highlights being the renaming of the Athletics Stadium to the Kirani James Athletics Stadium and the first professional

performance, in Grenada, by Grenada’s first Olympic Medalist (Gold in 2012 and Silver in 2016), Kirani James.

The mantra of the Grenada Invitational then and remains the same – World Class Athletes, World Class Events, World Class Venue. It is the morphing of these elements that has led to the excellence the Grenada Invitational has been able to attain. Since the inception, ESPN has been a broadcast partner making Grenada and the Invitational accessible to an audience we would not otherwise be exposed to. Another major success of the Grenada Invitational has been the commitment and

dedication of the team charged with executing at an extremely high level. The professionalism has been maintained and has ensured the longevity of the Games. Additionally, our Volunteers, our Corporate Partners, the Government of Grenada, the Grenada Tourism Authority, the Media and in general Well-wishers and Supporters of the Games have all made very valuable tangible and intangible contributions for which we are eternally grateful.

In 2020, an Olympic year, Grenada Invitational Inc. will honor the 43 or so Grenadian nationals who have represented Grenada at the Summer Olympics since 1984. There will be a full parade of those past Olympians on April 4th, 2020.

The 4th annual Grenada Invitational will take place on Saturday April 4th at the Kirani James Athletics Stadium, with live television broadcast on ESPN – the Broadcast Partner of the Grenada Invitational.

THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS: Dexter Mitchell - Chairman Dr. Francis Martin Mr. John Williams

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Mr. Ian Marshall Mr. Damione Darbeau

The Grenada Invitational: An Outside Perspective WRITTEN BY HARON FORTEAU The Grenada Invitational, where some of the brightest stars assemble in the spice island, is set for the first weekend in April -- April 4th to be exact. I guess you can call it a combination of stars & spice. When I first heard about this event, I literally could not believe it. I thought it was a funny prank, but the closer it came, the confirmations came from the athletes through their personal social media accounts. The excitement only grew with the counting down of the days; and it is definitely a sight to behold on the day itself.

All the people that I have admired for ages are coming to my country to compete: Justin Gatlin, Andre Degrasse, Shellyann Frazer-Pryce, Torie Bowie, Mike Rodgers, Asafa Powell, as well as top Grenadian athletes such as Kirani James, Lindon Victor, Anderson Peters, Kurt Felix, Kanika Beckles, and the list goes on. This event is quite a phenomenal spectacle from both track & field aficionados and a casual spectator’s point of view.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY HARON FORTEAU At the track, viewing pre-event training sessions, observing the athletes throughout their various training and conditioning drills where seeing athletes at that unsurpassed level of speed, seems surreal almost, even for someone like myself who has covered other international events. As a sports photographer, you definitely have to think much quicker because athletes are moving quicker than you think; before you blink, the race is done. Not to mention the gargantuan sized cameras that will be all over the stadium from ESPN (you don’t want to be blocking an international broadcast camera from showcasing the winning race shot).

The aspects of the events I love to cover are the moments before the Start, the focus of the athletes, the fury in the desire to win, the crowd’s

reactions d u r i n g the races, the athletes in action, and the ‘Victory Lap’ from most of the winning athletes, as they greet the crowd and partake in the deafening fanfare that fills the stadium. I would think the athletes themselves are taken to the colorful characters painted in bright colors, big flags -- the works. Grenadians are, indeed, a people that know how to support sports: Just take a peek through Grenada’s history; we are a sports nation, and it radiates throughout the stadium on that day.

This event is one of my favorite events on the local track & field calendar, to have local and international athletes at their peak competing for athletic supremacy amidst a plethora of eager fans and supporters. I will definitely be at the event, will you?

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GRENADA SAILING WEEK WRITTEN BY ROSIE BURR PHOTOGRAPHY BY ARTHUR DANIEL

Island Water World Grenada Sailing Week came to an end Friday, January 31st after a fantastic four days of racing out on the water and six nights of shore side parties afterwards. The 8th edition saw 35 boats registered with skippers from 13 countries around the world, including Antigua, Barbados, Grenada, Martinique, Trinidad, and St. Lucia, Canada, the United States, Austria, France, and the United Kingdom: bringing together over 350 crew, friends, family and volunteers to the regatta. “It’s friendly and the regatta is not trying to rip you off, and I get great racing here against other displacement boats similar to Cricket, says Sandy Mair, skipper of Cricket (ANT).

The event opened with the Island Water World Welcome Party held at Camper & Nicholson’s Port Louis Marina in St George’s on Sunday, January 26th. After registration and skippers’ briefing, Andre Patterson, the general manager of the title sponsor, Island Water World, and Patricia Maher, the CEO of Grenada Tourism Authority, warmly welcomed everyone to the regatta. With excitement in the air skippers and crews partied the night away to live music from local band Mystik.

To continue the Youth 2 Keel initiative in Grenada, both Norman Decosta, from ‘C-Mos’, and Peter Anthony from ‘Spirit of Juno’ offered places to race on their boats to junior sailors, providing them with the opportunity to get experience of keel boat sailing. Encouraged by the Grenada Sailing Association, our junior sailors from sailing communities in Gouyave and Woburn joined the teams onboard, to expand their knowledge and to progress from optimists and laser racing into keel boat racing, learning teamwork, building confidence and honing their sailing skills.

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Race day 1, sponsored by the Grenada Tourism Authority (branded as Pure Grenada), was held on the west coast, protected from the easterly trades, but often with fluky and shifting winds calling for strategic racing. Despite the protected coast, participants saw 10-15kts out on the water. It was a long day of racing with CSA classes and classics sharing courses of varying lengths from 7 -14 miles while the J24’s shot up and down their own course.

Race day 2, sponsored by our new friends at Silversands Grenada, saw light winds that thankfully increased as the day went on. Edward Kacal, skipper of Petite Careme, remarked, “she is a displacement boat, but when she is handled well, she is quick in light airs. We are really enjoying the regatta, this is our first time here, we heard it is a great event, we love Grenada, and always wanted to come.” That evening after the daily prize giving, racers danced the night away at the Pirate Party with prizes for the best dressed pirates and more local music by Fahrenheit.

Participants caught up with rest on the lay day, with many taking the opportunity to tour the island. Others chose to chill out by the pool at Camper & Nicholson’s Port Louis Marina. Later that afternoon Mathew Barker celebrated his classic yacht, The Blue Peter, 90th birthday with an informal dock with plenty of free-flowing rum and beer contributed by Mount Gay and Island Water World.

Race day 3 on Thursday, January 30th was sponsored by Sea Hawk Paints. This saw participants enjoy a long romp around south-west coast, from Grand Anse on the west coast to Prickly Bay on the south coast with the Transition Race.

This moved the event from our hosts at Camper &

Nicholson’s Port Louis Marina to Secret Harbour Marina. With the winds gradually increasing, conditions were ideal with a gusting 15kt breeze.

Spectators at Prickly Bay Point overlooking the south coast were treated to a kaleidoscope of colours as spinnaker flew on the downwind tacks.

Secret Harbour Marina hosted the After-Race Party with local music from Apollo.

Race day 4, and the final day of racing, was sponsored by long-time supporters, Mount Gay Rum. Participants were chomping at the bit to get over the start line. With 15-20kts breeze it was a frisky day’s racing out on the water with everything to race for and nothing to lose.

In CSA 1, last year’s winner of the Caribbean Sailing Association Travellers Trophy, Pamela Baldwin

from Antigua with ‘Liquid’, took first place over all, with Richard Szyjan and his Hobie 33, ‘Category 5’ from Grenada, taking second place just 6 points behind. Rob Butler of Canada with ‘Touch2Play Racing’ came in third. Pamela indicated this is a great start to the season.

In CSA 3, Austrian Dieter Huppenkothen and his Swan 43, ‘Rasmus’ came first overall in class - a first time win for him at this regatta. Norman Decosta of Trinidad and his Soveral 42, ‘C-Mos’ and UK Mathew Barker’s Alfred Mylne 65, ‘The Blue Peter’ battled it out with the closest racing, with ‘C-Mos’ coming in second in class, just 0.50 points ahead of ‘The Blue Peter’.

In classic class, Jonathon Gittens of Barbados and ‘Shangri-La’, his Morgan 41, took the final honours with an impressive run of first places. Danny Donelan of Grenada and Carriacou sloops, ‘Free in St Barths’ and ‘Zemi’ came in second and third,

with just 2 points between them.

Robbie Yearwood’s ‘Die Hard’ from Grenada, Nick Forsberg’s,’ Jabel’ from St Lucia, and Gus Reader’s ‘Fadeaway’ from Barbados all led the way with the J24’s. But it was ‘Die Hard’ with 7 wins out of 18 that took the final honours.

The final night’s prize giving and the Mount Gay Wrap Up party this year was held at a new location: The Aquarium Restaurant on Magazine beach.

Partygoers said “.... the setting was magical and the buffet dinner was superb...well done !!”

Partygoers danced the night away under the stars to the local legends ‘Solid the Band’, who really knew how to get the party started.

The Organising Committee wants to thank: Island Water World, the Grenada Tourism Authority, Silversands Grenada, Sea Hawk Paints, Mount Gay Rum, NSS Grenada & Dream Yacht Charters, as well as all the supporting sponsors, volunteers and everyone involved. The dates set for the 9th edition of Island Water World Grenada Sailing Week run from Sunday, January 31st - February 6th, 2020.

Daily and final prize giving were introduced by Guest of Honour Brenda Hood, chairman of the Grenada Tourism Authority.

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WESTERHALL WHITE JACK GRENADA SAILING FESTIVAL -

GRENADA CELEBRATES WORKBOAT TRADITION WRITTEN BY LOUAY HABIB

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ARTHUR DANIEL

The tri-island state of Grenada has over 200 years of boat building tradition and the Westerhall Rums White Jack Sailing Festival is not just a celebration of that maritime heritage but also provides opportunities for the experienced seaman to pass on their knowledge to young upand-coming sailors.

Thousands of Grenadians, and visitors to the Spice Island, watched the racing on Grand Anse Beach. With the grills fired up and the bars doing a lively trade, the crowd cheered on their favourites, and ultimately payed homage to the winners. In true Grenadian style the after party lasted long into the night.

After the Community Rounds concluded, champions from the various regions of Grenada progressed to the Match Race Finals.

The Community Champions were: Ted Richards’ Classic (Gouyave Sloop), Marvin Jeremiah’s No Retreat, No Surrender (Sauteurs), Pabon Bernadine’s Unity (Woburn Traditional), and Andy De Roche’s D’Rage from Petite Martinique (Woburn Sport). The Match Racing Finals consisted of three separate races with teams racing in World Sailing ratified GSF16s.

First to go was the National Team Sailing - Junior - Sponsored

by Budget Marine. Team Gouyave, sailing in Pink Gin, made an

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impressive start to open up a substantial lead but half way down the first beat the team tacked earlier than the competition, and failing to lay the mark cost them the lead, which was taken up by Team Woburn, sailing in Tomorrow’s Worries. Team Gouyave fought back and in a decisive split tactical move, on the very last leg, Team Gouyave re-took the lead to cross the line, less than a boat length in front.

The second final was the National Team Sailing - Senior - Sponsored by Carib. The wind speed was significantly lower for the start, producing a match race about brain rather than brawn. Team Gouyave got away to a great start, but was overhauled by Team Woburn.

At the final mark before the reach to finish, Team Gouyave needed to do something to gain the lead, and headed to the extremity of the racecourse, almost touching the pink sand of Grand Anse Beach.

Team Woburn covered from in front, keeping themselves between the line and their competitor. Both teams sailed way off the rhumb line, Sauteurs took the direct route. Team Woburn did just enough to beat Team Gouyave to the line with Team Sauteurs in third.

The final race was a belter, by now the crowd onshore had whipped up to a frenzy! For the 2020 Champions of Champions, three teams were in the contest. Team Gouyave with the Classic crew got the best start racing Pink Gin. The other two teams locked horns at the start; Team Woburn Traditional racing Tomorrow’s Worries, and Team Woburn Sport, racing Gybe Talk.

Team Gouyave got into clear air and shot into the lead, whilst the two teams from Woburn battled each other. There was no stopping Team Gouyave, which crossed the line well ahead to win the Champion of Champions. Woburn Traditional held off a strong challenge to take second from Woburn Sport.

It is the third year in a row that Classic & her Owner, Skipper & crew have won - now making them ‘Hat- Trick’ Champions. Gouyave dedicated the win to the memory of Lennon Marshall, a passionate workboat sailor, who skippered Gouyave Sloop ‘Riot Act’ to many memorable victories.

2020 ‘CHAMPION OF CHAMPIONS’ Winner - Gouyave - with a crew from Classic (winner of Gouyave Sloop Class) sailing GSF16 Pink Gin - Skipper & Owner Barry Alexis - winning US$1,000.00 & owner Barry Alexis also winning a Yamaha outboard engine from McIntyre Brothers.

Second - Woburn - with a crew from Unity

(Winner of Woburn Traditional Class) sailing GSF16 Tomorrow’s Worries - Skipper Pabon Bernadine - winning US$500.00.

Third - Woburn - with a crew from D’Rage (winner of Woburn Sport Class) sailing GSF16 Gybe Talk- Skipper Andy De Roche - winning US$250.00.

After the prize-giving ceremony on Grand Anse Beach, including a spectacular firework display, the after-party went on long into the night with DJ Blackstorm keeping the vibe hot.

The 2021 Westerhall Rums White Jack Sailing Festival will take early February. Regatta supporter Mount Cinnamon Resort is an ideal venue for visitors to Grenada. Gracefully tucked on the hillside atop Grand Anse Beach, an enclave of 37 luxury villas and suites, each with its own veranda of sweeping views. A short walk through fragrant, forest path leads to a beachside cabana, from their it is just ten minutes stroll to the festival along one of the best beaches in the Caribbean.

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The Resurgence of Sailing in Gouyave WRITTEN BY SHON MARSHALL PHOTOGRAPHY BY ARTHUR DANIEL

The Gouyave Easter Regatta, as it is commonly known, was initiated and organized by a few prominent sailors and boat owners from the Gouyave community, including the late Fitzroy Bedeau, brother Barry Alexis and Joseph Tavniere, as a leisure activity over the Easter weekend, as they were essentially prompting a meaningful break for the fishermen who were/are skippers and crew member of those boats.

After establishing the festival and realizing its impact within the community, they decided to take it further and make it more attractive and official as an annual event in Gouyave in the early 2000s. As such, they created the Gouyave Easter Sailing Festival, seeking the official sponsorship from Independence Agency through its branded beer, Piton.

The festival was able to bring together the whole community and most significantly both seasoned and young aspiring sailors.

Gouyave was always rooted in sailing. It was how the older fishermen went about their trade in those days before the introduction of motor-powered vessels that are so ubiquitous today.

The people would anticipate every year the competitive sailing and the heated arguments of the fans. It also gave rise to

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beach activities, to involve non-sailors, such as beach football and volleyball, tug-o-war, greasy-pole climbing and other fun activities.

And, of course, the sound of sweet music coming from a disc jockey filling the air. It always ends with a grand prize ceremony for all of the winners in the various events and categories. So, there is much excitement throughout the entire festival, right up to the very end.

Unfortunately, the festival that was started by those men suddenly came to a halt for some years. Then came last year Mr. Ellon Redhead who took it upon himself and formed a small group and restarted the festival. They were successfully able to seek the sponsorship of many companies, such as the Blast Arcade and Gaming Lounge, the Grenada sailing festival, McIntyre Bros. Ltd., the National Lottery Authority, and many more cooperate businesses. Mr. Redhead’s aim for the festival is to see that Gouyave establishes and hosts a regatta that is second to none in the triisland state, and to ensure that the spirit of sailing continues and grows. He organized the festival in such a masterful way that he was able to attract the older seasoned sailors as well as the emerging ones, with the likes of Ted`”Sakatee” Richards and

Lennon “Bear Dog” Marshall, who is now deceased, alongside the young sailors from the Gouyave Sailing Club, which is run by yet another young sailor, Kevin Banfield, who is making strides in the sailing fraternity both nationally and regionally.

The sailing events are divided into two main categories: sloops and canoes. Those are generally classified as workboats. The very young sailors, from the tender age of eight to fifteen, will keenly compete among themselves in boats called mosquitoes.

Some will also be given the opportunity to sail in the gf 14’s and 16’s. The sailing itself goes on simultaneously with the non-sailing activities on the beach, with the sweet

feelings for the Gouyave team as well as sailors from other parishes, especially on the Sunday, the day of the main event dubbed ‘the race of the Champion of Champions’ or ‘the thousand-U.S-dollars race.’ Lennon, on several occasions would have won such race as a skipper, proving his prowess as a sailor.

Many event-goers would have remembered his achievements as a sailor over the years.

Though he was not there in person, he was there in spirit. It was half past four when the race finished, with the same workboat Lennon had skippered over the years winning the Champion of Champions race, only this time it was his adopted father, Mr. Barry Alexis sharing skipper duties with Ted Richards. One would have seen the clinched of the title and the establishing of a hattrick for the Gouyave team, accompanied by a mournful acclamation of his name led by Mr. Barry Alexis. The mournful reverberation of “Lennon” was Mr. Alexis’ triumphant celebration of his son’s spirit as he disembarked ‘Pink Gin’ to celebrate with spectators on Grand Anse beach.

Barry Alexis, Kevin Banfield, Deleon Walters pulsating sounds from the DJ mixing with the loud commotion from those tracking the boats’ movements ashore. Attractive giveaways are also afforded to participants of the beach activities, so there is great excitement there as well. The event is truly a community event, with something for every participant and spectator to engage in.

Mr. Redhead will be rehosting the festival this year. It is branded the NLA-Blast Easter Regatta, promising more flair and excitement; as this year there are bigger attractions in store; certainly, bigger prizes.

The talk on the street is that it will be much bigger than last year’s renaissance. We will

like to wish Mr. Redhead and his planning committee the best. We will be delighted to see the festival grow from strength to strength. This year’s event is set for April 12th and 13th.

It is fitting that I pay tribute to a beloved sailor on this occasion, who also happened to be my nephew, the aforementioned Lennon “Bear Dog” Marshall who passed away tragically on December 9th , 2019, and was laid to rest exactly one month to the date. The annual Grenada Sailing Festival, which took place on the world-famous Grand Anse beach in St. George’s from February 1st to the 3rd , 2020, was an occasion of mixed

The whole Gouyave posse was very jubilant.

Another occasion he will be missed is when snapper starts to hold plentiful. I can hear the many voices including mine calling out and prayerfully asking for a snapper, and I can hear him replying “ah doh giving nobody me fish; that is for me to sell for me aunt Maureen.” But yet he will still give. My dear nephew will forever be missed by his two beautiful and loving children he left behind, his mom and dads, his one and only sister and four brothers, numerous uncles and aunties and all his friends and relatives.

Lennon may your gentle and loving soul continues to rest in peace.

There is a high possibility of a postponement of the event due to the evolving situation with the COVID-19 pandemic, so stay posted.

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Grenada Chocolate Festival and Turning your Passions into Profit WRITTEN BY SHERRY E.A. HAMLET

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ARTHUR DANIEL

built-in in that regard.

A visit during the Grenada Chocolate Festival allows one an opportunity to listen in as Kim and Lylette shared their humble start. Their innovation of thought that led to recycled materials being used to create excellent chocolate and their drive to keep it debt free, is indeed an inspiring tale and a triumphant one at that.

From stories of friends who put their money where their mouths are via soft small loans to crowd funding as well as farmers pooling their resources together, it is clear that if passion is infused with planning, the future of work could be a lot more enjoyable and rewarding.

Here is something I have noticed many people find trouble getting on board with: the idea that you should expect your passion to pay you someday; the idea that passion should sustain you and pour into you, as you pour into it.

During the Grenada Chocolate Festival held from May 1st to May 6th visitors can tour cocoa plantations and factories as well as engage in other planned events where participants get to experience chocolate making and the many uses of cocoa and chocolate and thus gain an intimate understanding of how Grenadian chocolate is produced. The Crayfish Bay Organic Cocoa Estate, where married couple Kim and Lylette grow healthy, organic cocoa, is one such farm. Kim and Lylette have turned home-grown cocoa into ethical, delicious dark chocolate bars among other products.

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and sustainable living to manifest through their sustainable practices such as recycling and foregoing bank loans that has blossomed into a thriving business and a model for other small businesses. Another approach that has proven very beneficial and sustainable is that of co-operatives, as one will notice with the Grenada Chocolate Company founded by Mott Greene, Doug Browne and Edmond Brown, who then invited farmers in the area to join. The Diamond Chocolate Company, markers of Jouvay Chocolate, is an entity created by the Grenada Cocoa Growers Association in conjunction with an American chocolatier to produce chocolate for the North American market. Thus, the co-operative element is

Kim and Lynette spoke of waking up long before the Caribbean sun rises from beneath the horizon to catch the perfect, chilled temperature that facilitates hand-churning, and ultimately quality chocolate with gratitude and affection. From buckets to microwaves, to hand squeezed pancake makers, these entrepreneurs are exemplars of the kind of entrepreneurs intent on establishing a model for a more sustainable lifestyle and overall economy, with less reliance on foreign food products and capital financing.

As I stood there watching this couple talk with gumption and passion about the cocoa they grew in their backyard and literally roasted, shelled, whipped, molded and settled into shape, my appreciation and

national pride expanded in my chest.

One of my favorite Grenadian maxims is ‘All who have cocoa drying must look out for rain.’ Essentially, what it means is if you

have tentative matters/your own business that you don’t want to cause you ruin/or be exposed, then best keep your eyes looking towards the future/mind your own business.

As a local, I love Grenada’s cocoa, it’s always had a special place in my heart. I wish I could describe for you the smell of a bayleaf hitting that boiling hot, dark, swirling vat of cocoa. How it permeates...not just every room of the house with the smell of roasting cocoa bean but the general surrounding environment with it. So many Sunday mornings I woke up by that smell, as my mother stood at our stove, waking the house (and my appetite) with the stir of that pot of tea. I love it so much I’ve written poetry about it.

I can truly say I appreciate my Grenadiangrown/ island-made chocolate so much more, after meeting Kim and Lylette as well as others involved in the growing industry.

My heart is full of appreciation and wonder for our farmers who keep doing this with little recognition. They care for our lands and birth delectable treats that we can appreciate locally, regionally and internationally.

So many of these same farmers have passed retirement age, but continue to supply our needs in the shadow of praise. I am mindful

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not just of the taste but of every boot that still rises before the dawn, whenever I sip my favorite, locally produced, cocoa tea now.

There is a crisis of not enough farmers this generation, as underscored by Kim’s appeal to take up the mantel on a tour of their plantation. Even in the face of this, the smile of his wife as she articulated her experience waking before the sun to whip chocolate, her determination to get it right is an unmistakable truth. The humility of a family that built profit on the back of passion and sustainable living with the urging of a dream made persistent. It is a joy few know and will know if we do not allow ourselves to break away from the notion of only settling for work that does not fuel the soul.

The Crayfish Bay Organic Cocoa Estate is beautiful, and their chocolate delectably made. This entrepreneurial success is one that now contributes to their tables and that 27

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of others and ultimately demonstrates the fortitude of the country of Grenada, through the continuance of cultivating a high-indemand natural resource primarily for its own benefits, unlike years gone by when not much was being done to add more value. Their products and that of the other local manufactures are grown, made and packaged, ethically and are economically prudent.

Just imagine, if Kim and Lylette had listened to the naysayers, and not follow their passion. I’m so glad they didn’t. I hope you don’t either. If you have a chance to pursue a dream that can lawfully pay you, I hope you, too, reach for it with planning, passion and both hands.

“Let your passion and profit be partners.”

Sherry E. A. Hamlet is an Afro-Caribbean writer, blogger and performance poet with albinism.

Hailing from the island of Grenada, she has worked as a teacher for thirteen years. Sherry attained her Bachelor of Education from the University of the West Indies and has been published in ARC Magazine in the Caribbean and Albinism Insight in America, the magazine of the National Organization of Albinism and Hyperpigmentation. Currently, she is pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at The City College of New York, and concurrently performing poetry under her stage name “The Wordy Phoenix” and training her mind to continue writing like she’s running out of time.

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Getting to the Root of Veganism in Grenada: Vegan Hot Spots WRITTEN BY BONTRICE HUTTON

In 2020, surprisingly enough, less meat in the pot and eventually on the plate, the better. The mindset of saving the meat for last, as we once did as children, seems to be under strict scrutiny by a wide demographic of Grenadians. Hence, the more nutritious is a meal, the more persons tend to gravitate towards it, with the intent, of course, to engage in a healthier way of life, albeit the reputation of Grenada leading in deaths from cancer in the Caribbean does not quite reflect such.

Natural hair, skin and overall body care is a major priority to most Caribbean folks, and such is no less emphasized with the rising popularity of veganism, in realizing all the tangible benefits that are bestowed from practicing healthy eating habits. This trend has sparked some innovative entrepreneurs to get into action, introducing their vegan catering services on island. These vegan or plant-based foods are prepared in fine style and given a true authentic Caribbean flavor, of all our home-grown spices, with much emphasis being placed on taste and textures. Allow me to take you on a journey into the vision behind some of these small businesses, and how they have impacted Grenada: not just on the topic of nutrition but feeding of one’s mind, body and soul.

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to its devotees.

According to W. J. Craig from the Department of Nutrition and Wellness, Andrews University, Berrien Springs, MI., “A vegetarian diet is associated with many health benefits because of its higher content of fiber, folic acid, vitamins C and E, potassium, magnesium, and many phytochemicals and fat content that is more unsaturated. Compared with other vegetarian diet, vegan diets tend to contain less saturated fat and cholesterol and more dietary fiber.” With such a mouthful of nutritional benefits behind this “clean eating” lifestyle, as it has been referred by many of its followers, we are still left to consider the one factor on most meat eaters’ minds before they truly decide to take that plunge: Where is the PROTEIN, and how do I survive on only plants and carbohydrates from wheat products?!

As a nation, we are so saturated with the fast food industry and processed foods that we tend to forget the essentials of eating a balance diet and that there are many more food sources available with protein other than meats. Moreover, there is also the growing concern that the poultry industry throughout the western world has become very dangerous in the approach to rearing of chickens and other animals, with the pumping of hash chemicals into their livestock to increase their growth significantly. This in turn causes continuous hormonal and digestive irregularities in these animals and consequently in human consumers, as it rids the body of its natural defenses against the common cold virus and other viruses and diseases. This is, indeed, a huge factor in the sudden increase in veganism and how it exposes one to a holistic way of life that was initially practiced by our African and East Indian ancestors as a form of cleansing and rejuvenation of one’s body, in establishing and maintaining health.

Speaking of rejuvenation, the first thought that

comes to mind is the foundation of all plant-based diets, the root. Roots Grenada is a perfect example of how good solid roots can grow into something beautiful. Roots Grenada is a seed of a plantbased, meal subscription, delivery service on island. It was planted several years ago, but officially founded on August 1st, 2019. The foods are sourced directly from their own garden, with the direct involvement of the culinary team – all organically grown in the nature-rich parish of St. David.

They have worked conscientiously through many obstacles to achieve a highly skilled core group of persons to perform those essential duties, including tending to the farm. This group is led by co-founders Kitaka Mawuto; Nathaniel Francis, a trained Grenadian chef; and Laslie Carrington, an international wellness curator. They provide a variety of culinary services around the globe, from meal subscriptions, individualized meal plans, catering, group workshops, and event planning.

All of the ROOTS culinary creations are made from fresh locally sourced produce no matter where we are in the world. For their international market, they have involved other ethical and organic farmers on island to serve as suppliers of produce, as well as farmers across the globe who farm sustainably to ensure their clients are provided with the most nutrient-dense foods.

Their international partnerships and adherence to farm-to-table cuisine on a global level definitely sets them apart from many local vegan/plantbased businesses.

Kitaka, co-founder of Roots Grenada, paints a picture of how this all came into existence. He says, “the concept of Roots was born from my upbringing as a Rastafarian. We ate from the land and was taught that Source/ Earth would provide all of our dietary needs; that there was no need to look elsewhere for sustenance.

Hence, our tag Food straight from the Source.”

The founders of Roots are strong advocates of healthy lifestyle practices: “We are aware of the rapid increase in illnesses

among our people, the ineffective health care system, and its inability to treat many of the diseases in the world. ROOTS stands by the adage ‘let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.’ We see healthier eating as a more effective way of dealing with the vast amount of diseases that plague our society. Let us engage in proactive measures instead of reactive ones.”

ROOTS was created to advocate, support and promote the benefits of a plant-based lifestyle.

They have collaborated with chefs around the globe to provide not only culinary services but also training and individual support to assist them on their plant-based journey.

Their focus is clear, not only is plant-based diet a priority but portion sizes as well, in detoxing and realizing the way food can help give one overall wellness inside and out.

Another Rastafarian that has built a family business with the aim of

nourishing the bodies and minds of this small but large-at-heart nation is none other than Ian. This short but mighty name was given to this popularly known Rastafarian of the St, George’s area, who runs a food parlor and doubles stall on St. John’s street. His business provides vegans with daily meals hot and ready, as well as local juices and sweet treats by order only. The doubles stall is a new addition to their service, as they renovate and expand and look to move closer to the main road.

The reputation of this business, which is known as ‘Vegan Vibes’, is a plant-based food stall for the convenience of vegans as well as non-vegans visiting or living in the city, and it is certainly appreciated by their growing customers.

We as Grenadians are known for our colorful personalities which shine through in our dishes as well. This next food caterer is very decorative and creative in her approach. Her name is Aria Francis. When she is not structing the runway as an international model, she is immersed in running a beautiful small business called ‘Healthy Choices.’ The food speaks for itself.

Apart from providing food to the usual meat eaters, Aria is keen in ensuring that her vegan customers have a piece of the pie, so to speak.

Her food selection, which comprises of mainly salad bases, are absolutely

“Veganism is not just an eating habit, it’s a way of life, a nourishment for your mind, body and soul, and a community of roots-based individuals with rich culture, ethnicity and heritage.” delectable as they are presentable. What sets them apart from the rest is that they allow the customers to create their own customized meals, while sticking within a balanced diet, and portions that are just the right size to fill you up. This business took flight on September 2nd, 2019, and is currently order-delivery based.

From reading this article, I hope you take away something that can help you in your transition or keep you on the straight and narrow as a vegan, in this toxic-induced world.

Who said plants can’t give your taste buds a run for their money and provide the same comfort like a hot bowl of mac-n-cheese. It’s obvious that many are reconsidering their approach to the foods they consume for the reasons mentioned.

And in light of the epidemic of diabetes, heart diseases and cancer in our population, it is only wiser to do so quite frankly. Of course, one still has to be concerned with the prevalence of toxic chemicals on produce, for it’s a constant struggle to be healthy in a haywire environment dominated by enormous corporations wielding monopolistic power; thus, single-handedly determining what we consume, as well as how we consume these by and large unhealthy food choices. It’s positive to revisit the ways many of our Rastafarian brothers and sisters have went about using plant-based meals to promote and sustain good health, ensuring that the natural environment is protected in the process. We applaud these entrepreneurs for leading the charge with seeking to reclaim a more localized approach to what we consume and how we consume these foods. Eventually, as it is already a trend, heathier choices will become a mainstay in our homes and schools alike.

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Image by Teddy Dwight Frederick

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Bryan Bullen to Represent Grenada at the Biennale Architettura in Venice WRITTEN BY ASHER MAINS PHOTOGRAPHY BY CARIBBEAN OFFICE OF CO-OPERATIVE ARCHITECTURE | cocoa.gd

For the 17th time, the city of Venice is hosting the Architectural Biennale; offered in off years from the Biennale di Arte, this international exhibition represents the world’s leading thinkers in architecture and spatial design. The curator for the 2020 exhibition, Hashim Sarkis, proposes a relational theme, “How will we live together?”. Sarkis’ vision addresses the new challenges that architects face in a world that is changing the way we have

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to consider the spaces we live and work in. Bryan Bullen is representing Grenada’s contribution to this global conversation with his completed parliament building project as well as a plan to revitalize and rejuvenate spaces and buildings that have been abandoned.

“COethos”, the theme for the Grenada National Pavilion, “is a voice from within Grenada that heralds a new cultural,

economic, and social perspective as a way to live locally in relation to rising environmental global issues.� The curators of the Pavilion appointed by the Ministry of Culture is the collective of Babau Bureau comprised of Marco Ballarin, Stefano Tornieri, and Massimo Triches, and is overseen by the commissioner of the pavilion, Susan Mains. Grenada is able to add a lot of value to the global conversation as it is very sensitive to both the effects of the environment but also as a country affected by tourism from all over the world. As a country, we not only have to consider how we live with each other locally but, like Venice, how we relate to a constant flux of visitors.

Many of the sites that Bullen has his sights on in Grenada negotiate the different roles

that we play as a country. Bullen’s bold imagination pulls together the need for beautiful, useful spaces that are culturally and environmentally contextual and situates them in existing sites. Creating these meaningful sites of relation on the bones of historical sites pulls the past and future together into a profound present. Originally slated to begin in late May, the Architectural Biennale will now begin in August in response to travel restrictions and safety concerns with the COVID-19 virus. While we as humans make plans, the world we live in many times implores us to adapt and change. We wait with anticipation for late August when Grenada will stand with 60 participating countries being reminded collectively that

the work Bryan Bullen is doing is not just thoughtful and full of meaning, but necessary for our survival together.

Asher Mains is a Grenadian visual artist. He is one of the directors at Art House 473, and is an instructor at St. George’s University, School of Arts and Sciences, and explores relation and meaning in his own practice.

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1261 Film Festival 2020!

Must-See Caribbean & African Films At This Year’s Festival, from animations to documentaries.

WRITTEN BY MESCHIDA PHILIP

1261 Film Festival, initially scheduled to premiere in Grenada May 2-9, should not be counted out, though like many social events, is being impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hence, the current issue with establishing a set date at this juncture. Such date, we trust, will be announced momentarily (in coordination with national policies surrounding the pandemic).

However, there is plenty to get excited about while awaiting its premiere, including you, the audience, and the must-see Caribbean & African films, from animation to documentaries that are in store. The festival theme this year is “Creative Inclusion.”

WHAT’S TO EXPECT AT 1261 FILM FESTIVAL? • Audiences can expect to see movies that are vibrant, groundbreaking, entertaining or educational; unstereotypical portraits of black and brown people experiences in the region and diaspora.

• Films that cannot be seen anywhere else in Grenada. Screenings will be held in St. Andrew and St. George.

• Filmmakers will have the platform to introduce their work and discuss topics shown in the film as well as the filmmaking process.

• Masterclasses & networking opportunities for emerging filmmakers seeking out their own ways around mainstream production.

• Something for the children

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This year’s festival promises a collection of creative treats.

Check out what we can’t wait for you to see and experience. Follow Us at @1261film festival #1261filmfestival2020 As ever, the annual festival is promoting dozens of regional and international feature films, short films, animations by diverse filmmakers telling stories about our cultural experiences.

There is something to see for everyone, RSVP your tickets today for the must-do’s worth checking out below.

CHILDREN FILM & ART FEST 1261 Film Festival presents the best new film from Africa to the Caribbean for children ages 3-18 to experience. They will have the opportunity to explore the world without leaving Grenada. It’s a family affair.

OPENING NIGHT The Festival kicks off with a red carpet cocktail evening featuring Grenadian filmmakers and artists.

WORKSHOPS For all the aspiring filmmakers, producers, writers, musicians make sure to tap into the knowledge of some of the Caribbean & International professionals facilitating masterclasses in production, story development, and producing music for films. RSVP for your masterclass here.

Photo: a kalabanda ate my homework | 1261FF2019

This year’s festival was planned for May 2 - May 9 in St. Andrew and St. George. However, we are having to contemplate new dates due to the evolving situation with the COVID-19 pandemic.

READ MORE ON OUR WEBSITE www.1261filmfestival.com

FESTIVAL IS POSTPONED DUE TO COVID-19 Photo: Screen shot of BCS by Alain Bidard, Animator

FESTIVAL PARTNERS FOR 2020

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by Asher Mains

VISION Magazine

EAR FOR THE OTHERWISE: A TRIBUTE TO

EDWARD KAMAU BRAITHWAITE WRITTEN BY NIJAH CUNNINGHAM

To: kb5@gmail.com From: nijahc@princeton.edu Cc: Raye Richardson; Paule Marshall; Toni Morrison; Iman Leila; Édouard Glissant; Amiri Baraka…

Bcc: VISION Magazine Subject: <..>>

Dear Prof. Brathwaite, When I heard the news, my head began to spin. It wasn’t that your death hit me particularly hard or that I was struck with grief.

Actually, if anything, you have already showed me and so many others the gift of great losses. You are the one that once said in an interview: Art must come out of catastrophe […] I’m so conscious of the enormity of slavery and the Middle Passage and I see that as an ongoing catastrophe. So whatever happens in the world after that, like tsunamis in the Far East and India and Indonesia, and 9/11, and now New Orleans, to me these are all aspects of that same original explosion, which I constantly try to understand1 Spinning is how I describe the experience of thinking with you, the experience of inhabiting that tsunami’s crush and undertow as the aftershocks or afterimages of the profound ways slavery and the Middle Passage have shaped the modern world. Thinking with you is a simultaneous refusal of dialectical reasoning, which, for you, “is another gun: missile: a way of making progress: / farward,” and the embrace of that which “moves outward from the centre to circumference and back again: a tidal dialectic: an ital dialectic: continuum from the peristyle.”2 Hearing of your death helped to trigger my imagination and return to a way of thinking that does not arrive at truth but seeks it elsewhere as it ripples out from the perimeter or reason’s edge as you might call a tiadialectic splay.

Your poetry—the way it cracks open the harden shell and touches the unique pearl of imagination in each reader—has stayed with

me since our last correspondence about ten years ago. Ever since then, I feel like I have been constantly thinking with you, returning to your poems, essays, and lectures, listening to your voice bounce off the walls of memory, and running into you here and there, whether it be at UWI, Mona Campus in 1974; Bremen, Germany in 1980; or New York City in 2000. Returns. Echoes. Reruns. Thinking with you is spin’s occasion. But this is not the spin of today’s “fake news” and the simulated iconoclasms of media monopolies which are just other guns. It is, instead, the “centrifugal work” that your friend, Nate Mackey, once talked about; a work “that begins with good-bye, wants to bid all givens good-bye.”3 Thinking with you also extends itself with good-bye and lives out that loss each time we hear you again for the first time…

You should know that there have been a number of beautiful obituaries written about you. Of course, they detail your life in the same conventional modes that we tend to use to recount the lives of remarkable individuals. You know the story: Lawson Edward Brathwaite, born to Hilton and Beryl (Gill) Brathwaite in Bridgetown, Barbados in 1930. He attended Harrison College and he would go on to earn a scholarship to study at Cambridge University in England. From 1955 – 1962, he served as an education officer in the Gold Coast and witnessed Ghana gained its independence and Kwame Nkrumah’s rise to power. In 1965, he began his Ph.D. at the University of Sussex where he completed a dissertation, later published under the title The Development of Creole Society in Jamaica (1770-1820). During the 1960s, he composed his most famous work The Arrivants: A New World Trilogy (1973), an epic trilogy that tracks the displacements of peoples of African descent and exemplifies his life-long ambition to establish a Caribbean poetics of the voice. While in London he co-founded the Caribbean Artist Movement alongside Trinidadian poet, activist, publisher, and bookseller, John La Rose, and Jamaican novelist and journalist, Andrew Salkey. He taught at the University of West Indies from 1982 to 1991 and then was appointed professor of comparative literature at New York University in 1992. He has been awarded fellowships from the Ford, Fulbright, and Guggenheim Foundations as well as other honors, including the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2006 for his collection Born of Slow Horses (2005), the VISION MAGAZINE

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Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the Bussa award, the Casa de las Americas Prize for Literary Criticism, and, most recently, the PEN/Voelcker award for poetry in 2018. He died in his home in Barbados on Tuesday, 4 February, at the age of 89.

(Let me not misrepresent these tributes. All of them touch upon both your tremendous and more subtle contributions to the world of poetry and some even gesture to the collaborative work you did with your first wife, Doris, who’s sudden death following her cancer diagnosis you recorded in The Zea Mexican Diary: 7 Sept 1926 – 7 Sept 1986. Surely, it is our work to determine what will be remembered about the entanglements that shaped your life.)

Please excuse my abuse of the third person pronoun. I know it makes your story feel distant and cold. But if you listen to it closely, the repeating “he” resembles a faint laughter that also sounds like the self-proclamation of some metaphysical, masculine figure that Aimé Césaire, Michel Rolph-Trouillout, and Sylvia Wynter would probably refer to as Man.4 We know the Man got jokes. They are what he calls History. But there are other histories. That is one of the gifts that you have given us that lives on in the form of a task: “To discover things about your history that you don’t know you know because of your education.” 5 Recently, I returned to a reading that you gave back in 2000 of your poem “Calypso.” The beautiful thing about this particular recording is how it sways between lecture and poetry. On the recording you reflect on your “effort to find a rhythm other than the traditional English rhythm,” and go even further to explain how “by finding that alternative rhythm I started to discover things about my history that I did not know I knew.”6 It is by listening to what is already there, to the surrounding environment and people that make up this thing we call the Caribbean that you were able to discover a (self)knowledge that you did not know was your own but which was always there: submerged and immanent.

You framed the reading with the origin story behind the poem which helps to train your listeners’ ears: So, if God was a Caribbean God, as he should be [laughter], then he might take a pebble and skid it along the water. Each skid of the stone would become the pebble, each skid of the stone would become an island. But it was more than that because again I recognized for the first time you needed some rhythm or music in which the creation would take place. And it could not be the BUM BUM BUM BUM. It would not be that because that is not us. And I discovered that it was that skidded stone which corresponded to the music of the native, the music of the Caribbean: the calypso. It was that pointillist movement of chi chi chi chi chi out of which calypso is born. Then if I can, therefore, wield the concept of the creation of the Caribbean

by God skidding a stone with the music of God skidding a stone, then I might begin to have a poem.7

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In your seminal work, History of the Voice (1984), you go to much greater lengths to excavate the poetic resources found in the music and oral performances—what you call “nation-language”—of Caribbean peoples. I heard the music—not the inflated grandiosity of European Enlightenment that inspired Ludwig Van Beethoven’s 5th Symphony (“BUM BUM BUM BUM”). I heard calypso.

Listening to you again, I heard the music and more. I also heard your finger tapping out encouragement by approximating the rhythmic pattern of the steelpan (“chi chi chi chi chi”) an accompaniment to the poems opening lines:

The stone had skidded, arc’d, and bloomed into islands

Cuba and San Domingo

Jamaica and Puerto Rico

Grenada, Guadeloupe, St. Kitts

Nevis, Barbados and Bonaire.

Speed of the curving stone hissed into coral reefs

Here, a part of me wants to visibly mark the tapping. Similar to like how the first line stretches or is “arc’d” across the page in a similar fashion as the Caribbean archipelago stretches across the sea.

There are better examples of your perpetual re-assemblage, how you disassemble and over and over again in a neologistic dance ritual. Mackey’s talks about the phonic and semantic slippages cultivated by your poetic practice in terms of “wringing the word.”8 I also lean on him and Kelly Josephs for their respective elucidations of the development of your Sycorax video style.9 But, in the case of this recording, the tapping must go unmarked and that necessity makes me want to inquire about the blank spaces and what they might contain.

About three years ago, the staff at the special collections at the University of West Indies, Mona Campus, put me onto some reel-to-reel recordings of educational and cultural programming that spanned across several decades. There, I came across a recording of a poetry reading in 1974 featuring you and Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén. After your introduction and right before your read “Ancestors” from Islands, the second installment of your Arrivants trilogy, you say something that stays with me. First you hear applause and a chair scratch against the floor. It is unclear if the chair is being pulled up or pushed away. Then you clear your throat and say I cannot decide whether I should sit or stand. So, you have to please forgive me. [inaudible] I prefer to see you as well as you see me. But this thing might not hear me as you hear me. I will stand.

I cannot make out a portion of what you say because you were adjusting the mic. I can hear that. And I can also sense that there is a problem; specifically, a problem of recognition. The choice between sitting and standing is bound up with whether or not

your listening audience will be able to properly see you and if the microphone or “this thing” will adequately record your voice. The outcome of your decision to stand is unclear. But the problem that you describe makes me think about both blanks and silences as different forms of nonrecognition. What if blanks are not equivalent to silences and what goes unmarked on the page does not necessarily correspond to what is unheard in the recordings? Then we are left with something more capacious than nothingness and more sensuous than absence as that content of the unrecognizable. That means each time I read and listen to you again I am not only thinking with you but also with the people and things that surround you. I will always have to listen for the quiet clamor of that gathering that goes unmarked or unheard. Such is the task of discovering what you don’t know you know.

M. NourbeSe Philip, who, for me, always shared a bit of your light, closes a 2005 letter addressed to you with a note on hunger

in relation to the necessity “to imagine worlds the capitalist nightmare that presently holds the world hostage.” Philip tells you and us that “Simone Weil, the French philosopher, once wrote that hunger presupposes the existence of bread. So too I think our hunger for worlds in which we can recuperate the erased, memories of another time, presupposes the existence of those worlds.”10 I remember that you once mentioned in class that Jamaican slavers would feed the enslaved just enough food so that they would “sleep without dream.” I think you were getting after something similar to that hunger and what Philip demonstrates it presupposes. Listening to you is a similar search for sustenance that presupposes the existence those worlds that remain unheard but nonetheless stay with and amongst us. walk good, ni(n)jah

Joyelle McSweeney, “Poetics, Revelations, and Catastrophes: An Interview with Kamau Brathwaite,” Rain Taxi, online edition, Fall 2005, http://www.raintaxi.com/online/2005fall/brathwaite.shtm 1

2

Kamau Brathwaite, Missile and Capsule, ed. Jurgen Martini (Bremen: Universitat Bremen, 1983), 42.

Nathaniel Mackey, “Destination Out,” in Paracritical Hinge: Essays, Talks, Notes, Interviews (Iowa City: IA: University of Iowa Press, 2005), 239.

3

Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, (1955; repr., New York: Monthly Review, 2000); Michel Rolph-Trouillout, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995) Sylvia Wynter, “Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/ Freedom: Towards the Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation—An Argument,” CR 3, no. 3 (2003).

4

Kamau Brathwaite, “Reading at New York University, December 9, 2000,” recording by Chris Funkhouser, PennSound, https:// writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Brathwaite.php 5

6

Ibid.

7

Ibid.

Nathaniel Mackey, “Wringing the Word,” World Literature Today, 68, no. 4, Kamau Brathwaite: 1994 Neustadt International Prize for Literature (Autumn, 1994): 733 – 740.

8

Kamau Brathwaite, Conversations with Nathaniel Mackey (New York, NY: We Press, 1999) and Kelly Baker Josephs, “Versions of X/ Self: Kamau Brathwaite’s Caribbean Discourse,” Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal 1, no 1.

9

M. NourbeSe Philip, “Song Lines in Memory: A Letter to Kamau Brathwaite,” Save CowPastor, online forum, http://www.writing. upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/tomraworth.com/nourbeSe.html 10

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Caribbean Citizen/Human – a lyric; reasoning: Negus and me WRITTEN BY ROGER BONAIR-AGARD

I have a few hours before I must turn in this riff. I’ve just returned from Chicago’s Poetry Foundation at which fellow Caribbean poet, Christian Campbell, has just been bussin shots hot enough to melt the sleet coming down outside. Christian comes to the house often. We eat curry and drink rum and discuss a broad range of Black art, and Black thought. Much of that is Caribbean art and thought, naturally. And so it is, on many occasions he would be coming through the door, coat barely off before he’s asking me if I heard a new Soca that just come out, or I’m asking him how he’s feeling/holding up around Kobe Bryant’s sudden passing, or he’s quoting some Stuart Hall bars, or we shaking our heads about the vicissitudes of fathering toddlers, or as happened couple weeks ago when he came through the door with a “Boyyy, Brathwaite boy...” and I respond with “yeaahhhhh boyyyy...” and we shake our heads and steups and pour two shots of Bajan rum I have on the bar, and start to talk about our citizenship in the world vis-a-vis the life of Edward Kamau Brathwaite. Tonight, I’m late getting to the Poetry Foundation. Through the big windows, I can see he is already on the dais when I pull up and park, so I hustle in, forget to pay for parking, but slide in just in time to hear him begin the set in tribute to Brathwaite, with a recitation of Negus. I find a seat in the back, pull out my pencils and paper and settle in. If you have a lyric to flex about Brathwaite due in a few hours you could be worse places than at a reading in Chicago where the Massive start it up with a reading of Brathwaite’s brilliant and important poem, Negus.

In talking about the importance of Kamau Brathwaite, I turn most often to a story I’ve told a few times over the weeks since his death. It goes like this... When I was a boy, I was hard pressed to walk anywhere. I thought every destination had to be accessed at full speed. Elders in the 41

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community would slow me down in the street with a “Chile, yuh goin to fall! Slow dong! Yuh jess like yuh muddah!” Meanwhile my mother was trying to slow me down too, and decided she would have me memorize poems. She picked the poems, sent me off and called me back when she thought I should be done and had me recite them. The first of these poets was Linton Kwesi Johnson. The next was Brathwaite. I’m about six years old and there is some sort of community church function coming up. I’m charged with recitation of something for it. And my mother sends me off to memorize Brathwaite in all his anti-authoritarian glory. I return to perform the piece in front of my mother (who is chain smoking Benson & Hedges) sitting on the couch. After one performance, she says ‘again’, with instructions for more feeling here, better articulation there.

The poem is Negus (I had to search it out again to remember its name and how it began before writing this). It is a long poem (for a child) and it took most of an afternoon before my performance of it was to my mother’s standard. It was difficult, but I remember enjoying it, because in my small knowledge of poetry and what it could say, I didn’t know it could so rail against... well, everything the government, television, religion, colonialism.

Of course, my grandmother killed the notion of that as the performance piece. I wasn’t going to be embarrassing her with that black this/black that type madness (it was only 4 years past the Black Power Movement in Trinidad). I ended up reciting ‘I wonder why the Grass is green and why the wind is never seen...’ type foolishness. But it was too late. The toothpaste could not be fit back into the tube. I had met Kamau Braithwaite and my world was massive ever after.

At the risk of making this about my mother and me, I have often thought of Brathwaite’s importance in

the terms of what my mother, a radical woman in her time and place, thought I should be reading that I wouldn’t be exposed to elsewhere. The poem she had me recite began like this: It it it it is not it it it it is not it is not it is not it is not enough it is not enough to be free of the red white and blue of the drag, of the dragon it is not it is not it is not enough it is not enough to be free of the whips, principalities and powers where is your kingdom of the Word?

I was somewhere between 6 and 8 years old. My mother’s coaching on the performance of the piece was also about the emotional range she wanted me to access between lines 1 and 10. It is - I recognize now - the foundation of my understanding of linebreak, and the relationship between voice, print, silence, and space (in the body and on the page).

We’ll get back to that, but this is about how my mother flexed and innovated the thousands-year old job of parenting, her recognition that such was necessary because she had birthed a black boy into specific social and human conditions, and

that Edward Kamau Brathwaite was the talisman for this new work – nation building, Caribbeancitizen-making, Caribbean-humanity-forging.

What is the nature of colonization, and the experience of the colonial subject? How does one go forward finding and evolving ways for self-definition (or making) out of languages and education given one, precisely so as to deny that understanding of self? The struggle to identify, codify, and replicate/philosophize this new Caribbean-ness out of the morass of the colonial and the post-colonial is understandably complex.

But we have road maps. We have intrepid explorers who beat the bush aside to show us directions deeper into our own islands and out to the sea.

A tiny cross-section of those explorers will yield Marcus Garvey, Walter Rodney, Uriah Butler, Stuart Hall, Barbara Lalla, C.L.R. James, Maureen WarnerLewis, Bob Marley, Pat Bishop, and of course Brathwaite himself. We’ve largely ignored them. I went to Queen’s Royal College, the very institution that C.L.R. James helped make famous. His works were never part of any curriculum of mine while I was there. Beyond a Boundary was never on my book list. That seems preposterous to me now.

How do we understand who we are as colonial subjects and what we’ve been through so as to be able to follow these paths laid out for us, or even now, beat new ones? For me, I’ve come upon a definition of ‘colonize’: to co-opt someone or something for a purpose not its own; indeed to coopt it for a purpose that is diametrically opposed to its own good, and for the good of the colonizing power. To even be able to begin to figure out what I might evolve towards I needed that definition, which might lead me to ask then “what IS the purpose that is my own?” It is this project, one might argue, to which Brathwaite’s entire oeuvre is dedicated. It is this project that is perhaps distilled down to that singular governing question in Negus “where is your kingdom of the Word?” ...the Word – big W. “In the beginning was the...” and from that, all that we know is built. Brathwaite takes aim at the language as the locus of this struggle for self. Perhaps it is in the fever of his coming of age at a time when all of England’s colonial subjects are saying ‘fuck that!’ Brathwaite is living and working and creating in the Gold Coast, Ghana, as Kwame Nkrumah comes to power. He is returning to the Caribbean during the fever-pitch of all our drives toward independence.

He is hearing all the rhetoric suggesting we cannot govern ourselves. He is questioning what it means ‘to govern’

it is not enough it is not enough to be free to bulldoze god’s squatters from their tunes, from their relics from their tombs of drums” And he is concluding that governing cannot be synonymous with colonizing. We must discover what in our bodies echoes langauge in a way that allows us to discover honestly. We must find methods of going about these new businesses thrust upon us, that don’t mimic the same modes that snatched us from our homelands and brought us to the New World. Independence, and the end of colonialism must mean something else, must look different, feel different; and the only way to know what that looks like is to wring those languages from within us, to say the names of the things we require, and feel. Brathwaite calls it ‘nation language,’ and he recognizes it as manifest inside of meter that is different from the meter of the king’s English, even when he spoke that English. He recognizes accurately that while our languages have been replaced or super imposed by the languages of others, that our rhythms and meters have not. Pentameter isn’t ours, and what is ours is so deft in how it acrobats to explain us to the world that it begins by imposing the meters first and letting those meters cut and trip English into parts that fit our rhythms. Depending on which Caribbean island we’re in, it wholesale replaces English words or parts thereof with words that are Wolof, Yoruba, Taino, Hindi, Igbo, Congo, Akan, or irony of ironies - other European words. We each build a language of our own, from and (thus) for our needs, and we build it in spite of English and out of English and bursting right through English.

My mother was an English teacher. She insisted while I was growing up that I learn to speak ‘properly.’ She corrected my grammar. She corrected my pronunciation. She ensured that I knew how to eat with knife and fork from as early as two years old. She encouraged indiscriminate reading. Her reasoning was that I’d need standard English to get ahead in life, and that I’d have to be taught it. I’d learn nation language whether or not I wanted to. It was in the street. I’d pick it up automatically. She didn’t call it nation language.

But she taught me how to play all-fours, how to mix her a drink and as previously noted she had me prepare Brathwaite’s Negus for performance at the Arouca Presbyterian church. Over the years, I’ve had different positions on my mother’s philosophy around standard English and grammar and how a young person in her charge should come by it. In

turn I’ve agreed with it, or felt that she was giving too much power to the language of our colonizers and abusers. About a year before her death my mother told me for the first time that even as a decorated English Literature teacher she felt for much of her life that poetry was her weakness.

She didn’t want me to inherit that weakness so she threw as early as possible as much poetry my way as she could. I was flabbergasted by that revelation. I hadn’t detected a hint of weakness in my mother’s facility for teaching. Certainly, I have countless witness of those who have been taught Literature by her, who say she was brilliant beyond measure in that capacity. But even with that discipline around English grammar, she still made me memorize Linton and Kamau. Four or five year past the 1970 revolution my mother was proposing I loudly proclaim the most revolutionary shit... in a church of arguably the most conservative religious denomination on the island. It hit me today that my mother was super young when all this was going on. She was 33. She smoked a pack a day and was an avid partygoer. She dragged me along many a time. She taught me how to mix cocktails.

She knew my grandmother wasn’t going to allow this. She was making a point the whole time.

In the years between 1960 and the early 1970s, the Caribbean was rife with Independence movement morphing rapidly into revolutionary fervour that wasn’t satisfied with the simple replacement of colonial power by local bourgoisie. It is this Caribbean to which Brathwaite was returning from his studies and work, in newly independent Ghana.

It is in this time frame that his poetry and plays are asking profound questions of Caribbean language, with a vision to their impact on Caribbean life, and it is exactly at this time in 1968 that my mother is returning home from North America, having made a boy child in Brooklyn six weeks after the assassination of Martin Luther King. Every major American city was aflame. My mother had much to say as America erupted in protest again upon the murder of Mike Brown in Ferguson and the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2014. ‘I’ve seen this before,’ she said ‘...and it is a large part of the reason I took you home.’ She also raised me on The Weusi Alphabeti which began “A is for Africa, B is for Black, C is for Culture, and that’s where it’s at.”

My mother returned to Trinidad with revolution on her mind. She had a brand new black boy, and she was going to make of him, some different kind of Caribbean man than had come before, some different kind of Caribbean citizen. Among a few others, she entrusted that work to Brathwaite.

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Before the birth of my younger brother, I was an only child for upwards of nine years. I was a sport fanatic. I followed West Indies cricket like my life depended on it, and without quite knowing it, it did.

Any understanding of the builidng of a Caribbean lyric, a Caribbean understanding, a Caribbean citizen had to damn near begin with West Indies cricket if you were coming into consciousness in the 1970s. A team of black men were beginning to innovate and dominate the master’s game as had never happened before, and I was caught up in the maelstrom. I memorized every statistic, every player’s name – not just from the West Indies but from every test playing nation. I could recite from opener to 9 down batsman for every squad and reel off the litany of best performances for just about every noteworthy player in the world.

Cricket built my facility with memory, and my mother employed that memory in the recitation of poems. My mother never asked me to turn off the TV from watching cricket. She had long known what every Black West Indian knew about cricket. It was how we were going to finally get our chance to put white people in their place. When my mother sent me to memorize Negus, it is that youth brigade citizen she was further building on.

I returned in short order with the first two or three stanzas memorized. “Lemme hear them...” She drew on a cigarette. I don’t remember this exactly, but I do, because she would have been drawing on a cigarette in those days. I recite it in that sing songy way that children do who recite things that have a discernible rhythm. My mother sends me back. “Make every ‘it’ and every ‘it is not’ sound different” she says.

It is not enough to tinkle to work on a bicycle bell when hell crackles and burns in the fourteen-inch screen of the Jap of the Jap of the Japanese-constructed United-Fruit-Company-imported hard sell, tell tale television set, rhinocerously knobbed, cancerously tubed It’s a serious kaiso Brathwaite comes in with, here.

He syncopates as one would an internal rhyme between lines two and four above, except he visually end-rhymes bell/hell and leaves fourteen and screen as internal counter songs before he buss more shots with the sharp taunts of the “hard sell, tell tale tele-/vision set...” It is the phrase I remember most readily from that memorization

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session. I recognize it often as a conscious influence on my writing now. Both rhythm and content fascinated me. I understood immediately why he was calling TV a liar. It made all the sense in the world. And without the understanding to articulate it, I was excited that a poem could be so bold. I didn’t know it then but it feels like it was the first time that poetry captivated me. A poem had dared to ask me a question at the same time it was calling respected grown-ups liars. This was the kind of back talk I could get behind.

My grandmother says no. Negus will not be recited in her church. To understand this grandmother, you might need to know that my mother was adopted. Her own biological mother 18 years old and unwed, fled colonial village persecution in LaRomaine, Trinidad. This grandmother who takes my mother in has one child who is already 16. She takes on this charge reluctantly, but it is her duty to help rectify this shame. My biological great-grandmother is her cousin after all. I grow up calling her Mom because my mother does. I’m reflecting now on how my mother never instructs me to call them Grandpa or Grandma. I simply mimic what she calls them. There are other parts to this story that are for a different campfire. But she is already 30 years old when Brathwaite is born. Her husband, whom I call Daddy is born in 1896. His mother is an actual African. He grows up in an African compound. He speaks creole fluently. He never uses it because he is aspiring toward upwardly mobile society. His father is a French landowner several years his mother’s senior. He is 34 when Brathwaite is born. Carnival is only recently restored by the sturggles of stick fighters and jammette women who prevail over Captain Baker, when they are born. The Caribbean to which Brathwaite returns, the Caribbean my mother leaves to go abroad and comes back to in 1968 must seem like chaos to them. Brathwaite and my mother are collaborating on building an unrecognizable boy to them, but in the midst of this, carnival and calypso remain fundamental to the ethos of Trinidad if not the entire Caribbean. In 1972 I memorize my first ever calypso, a number by The Mighty Sparrow called Drunk and Disorderly.

The chorus went: Drunk and disorderly, always in custody meh friends and meh family all fed-up with me Drunk and disorderly; every weekend ah in de jail Drunk and disorderly nobody to stand meh bail...

I sang this at the top of my lungs throughout the

house. My grandmother laughed and laughed and laughed...

I’m chasing the fiery comet’s tail of Brathwaite’s genius, and discovering new worlds the more I write this. The deadline to hand this over draws nearer and Carnival 2020 is in the books. Minshall win again. Women come first, second and third in Calypso Monarch – first time ever. Chicago is a cruel cold, as my brethren whatsapp me to tell me about how the mas went.

The last few years I’m hearing again about the old time mas – baby dolls, jab jab, Pierrot, Midnight Robber all taking center stage again. Young people are reminding the old ones how they used to dream, and back-talk all at once. I feel like Brathwaite is still working, even through the low rumble of voice (his own) that they haven’t yet encountered. Nation Language is the sound they’re hearing (and replicating), in the reach back into the artifacts that constitute their own Caribbeanness. The excitement is that we might find there what we need for a real post-colonial truth to live in – a truth we could even sum up, succinctly: I must be given words to shape my name to the syllables of trees I must be given words to refashion futures like a healer’s hand I must be given words so that the bees in my blood’s buzzing brain of memory will make flowers, will make flocks of birds, will make sky, will make heaven, the heaven will make flowers open to the thunderstone and the volcano and the un-folding land.

“

My horizon on humanity is enlarged by reading the writers of poems, seeing a painting, listening to some music, some opera, which has nothing at all to do with a volatile human condition or struggle or whatever. It enriches me as a human being.”

“

“Books and all forms of writings are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth.

- Wole Soykina, Poet, writer, playwright (born July 1st, 1934)

“

“

Our fathers fought bravely. But do you know the biggest weapon unleashed by the enemy against them? It was not the Maxim gun. It was division among them. Why? Because a people united in faith are stronger than the bomb.

- Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Poet, writer, academic (born January 5th, 1938)

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Love After Love The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other’s welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

“

all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

- Derek Walcott, Poet, professor, playwright (January 23rd, 1930 – March 17th, 2017)

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“

“

“

“

“

“

…it is not enough to be free of the whips, principalities and powers.

- Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Poet, writer, academic (May 11th, 1930 February 4th, 2020)

The architecture of our future Is not only unfinished; the scaffolding has hardly gone up.

- George Lamming, Novelist, essayist, poet (born June 8th, 1927)

I became a writer because I would live a life that pleased me. I liked to investigate my own life.

- Jamaica Kincaid, Novelist, essayist, gardener, academic (born May 25th, 1949)

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“

I know the dark delight of being strange, the penalty of difference in the crowd, the loneliness of wisdom among fools…

- Claude McKay, Poet, writer, Seminal figure of the Harlem Renaissance (September 15th, 1889 – May 22nd, 1948)

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“

Capitalism has neither the capacity, nor the morality, nor the ethics to solve the problems of poverty.

- Fidel Castro, Late Revolutionary Leader of Cuba (August 13th, 1926 – November 25th, 2016)

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“

Radical simply means grasping things at the root.

- Angela Davis, Political activist, philosopher, professor, author (born January 26th, 1944)

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RIVER’S RESEMBLANCE (excerpt from Camerhogne) The clouds gather over the Hillocks of Emerald Crowns releasing millions of memories in a wishful song And as water from the gowns, of forest trees drip to the floor into the veins of this juvenile streamlet they pour And until this point, innocence is all it knows gentle and pure this young stream flows Conversations we keep, so gentle, so meek like a young child’s spirit, its playful voice doth speak Then in a few turns of the seasons, sudden changes appear Three four turns of direction, lusty noises one hears And like a mother that ponders to where her baby has gone into a roaring wild river, this young stream becomes!

Eager to show into a force it has grown rushes over the cliffs and hillsides where ‘twas born; Carving the land with cataracts and waterfalls deep a tone of fervor, this vibrant river now speaks!

So now its whole demeanor has changed A millennial fighting for freedom, an angry lion unchained But just like this ole soul that now rests by its side all the commotion and hype, one day must subside For into the plains and valleys the river soon flows after nature and time have taken their toll Longing for peace and longing for rest to humanity, the river calmly offers its best And so we must not feel sad, for the fate it must face; an apparent end, a winding trajectory of waste To all, a grand ending is nigh; one day like this great river we too must die So, as for now, into the arms of the ocean those same raindrops are called remember the river’s resemblance to the life of a mortal...

Bassanio Graneau ©

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ITAL From time to time I eat at an ital shop in a cramped corner of town. It has been here for years — rickety, ramshackle pieces of wood bunched together like the thick crunch of locks on the rastaman’s head under the smothered ambition of his tam.

In this storm of concrete that has come to this town, that has stolen the identity of ground — snidewalks that slide under our lives, the nice-nice escalator that steals our footsteps and walks calmly ahead of us, the seriousness of cement, the sweet hum of car and truck and van — I come to this bold, breakable icon, standing zemi-faced, the i-and-i of the storm, this shack where I come to the warm welcome of food that does not taste of haste or hustle, that does not taste of dungle. And so I & I path through this jungle of greens, through this white ixora of rice, through secret societies of spice that does not leave the smell of flesh or blood on my breath and, as Priestman say, does not taste of death.

Vladimir Lucien ©

TOBAGO

MARILYN DRAGS HER CHIRREN TO CHURCH

Mason Hall, Scarborough, Moriah Swimming naked in de cold ass river, Trust meh It does make your piggy shrink, Boy hurry up and mix de bush and rubbing alcohol And gimme Babash to drink, Right now, I want to eat dumplin and stew chicken out of a calabash dish

When the bell rings The spirits are being summoned And someone will manifest something profound like Osain say: How to heal your cough?

What bush to boil?

What root to drink to heal the broken hearted?

What piece ah cloth to bury in the soil?

Or

Or mashed coco yams

How much Seven Seas to drink?

Smothered in the spiced gravy of curried crayfish

What sit down pot to give Sheila husband if yuh want him to

I want to hear look de children beating de African drum,

think

while Nyabinghis chant de Garveyite sounds

about you...

This is where I want to be.

In the corner of the church Some boys will call Oshun or Shango by beating drums

I want to stand up by the market And woman watch Looking out for meh wife Cuz I cya woman touch Want to see the mad man dance de Tobago jig Watch Tantie Marilyn hawk she hand ah fig This is where I want to be

While Mother Marilyn hums... her favorite And the Watchman nurses the pilgrim And the men wonder: when are we ever going to get something to eat?

And the little ones pray for some sugar cake treat But not before the candle wax drip drop hot On the Captain’s hand Not before they tie de moaner’s band Not before Yemonja shake she waist

So keep your twitter, instagram

Not before we Africans remember

And your macobook

God bears a striking resemblance to our own burnt cursed faces.

Keep your radio stations with the same damn hook

It’s ironic that

Give me Blakie, Pretender and Kitch

So much was stripped of us

Besides,

But yet,

I only want to scratch when I itch

so much remains...

And make sure de saltfish clean before you ask me to eat

So Maro gyul: Chant your psalms of mercy

Woman, Wash inside de leg with lime because I prefer de dark meat Slow cooked over de African heat Mama Deep In de hills of Tobago is where I want to retreat It is where I want to be.

Lumumba Shabazz ©

Sing your songs of praise And never regret those days When your dragged your brood to de altar Remember how you made them pray You taught them de secret words of the Gods Even when they would have preferred to play... football But as grown as we are And as complex as we may be Those days, those drums and endless candle burns All conspires to keep us free....

Lumumba Shabazz ©

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“The Nunezes” Excerpted from Not for Everyday Use, a memoir

by Elizabeth Nunez

When my mother married my father, she must have felt this was her chance to erase her past.

She was now Una Nunez, but I believe she never lost her feelings of inadequacy. Deep down, I think she always felt as if she were an impostor, as if she did not, could not belong to the Nunez family. I think it was that feeling of insecurity that drove her to make certain that her children would be successful. She would join my father in his determination to instill in us that sterner stuff, even if it meant withholding tangible expressions of her love that she believed could weaken us, distract us, deter us from her goals for us. If not her, then her children would be true Nunezes.

At the time of my mother’s marriage to my father, the Nunezes were one of the island’s most distinguished families. They lived in a huge Victorian house, with white-fretted gables, at a major crossroad in Diego Martin. My grandfather had been a headmaster and a district warden.

My father and all his sisters and brothers had graduated from the most established private secondary schools on the island. My eldest uncle was a pilot in the Royal Air Force and had become a hero when his bomber plane was shot down over Germany; my uncle Winston was a famous evangelical minister in Canada, passing as a white man; my aunt Lois, who like my uncle Winston had also inherited my grandmother’s pale skin, seemed also to have fooled her white neighbors, for she was married to the mayor of Lancashire in England. My uncles Euan and John were on their way up the civil service ladder; one would become permanent secretary of housing, the other the permanent secretary of health.

My uncle Mervyn, the youngest of my father’s brothers, following his hero brother George, was a pilot in the Royal Air Force in England, and would eventually become a captain in the British Overseas Airline Company. My grandmother too was establishing her name as a grand dame of culture and the arts at the time 49

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my mother met my father. She played the piano and had a respectable singing voice.

My grandfather used to play the violin and was a talented sculptor who used wood to create exquisite art objects, and I suppose he encouraged my grandmother when she began to take tentative steps toward turning her living room into a sort of Bloomsbury salon.

I have written an essay about my grandmother’s salon that was published by the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, for a chapbook celebrating the 2012 exhibition Shakespeare’s Sisters. The title of the exhibition is a reference to Virginia Woolf’s speculations in “A Room of One’s Own” about the lives of women writers in Shakespeare’s time.

In my essay, I suggest that the salons that mushroomed in Trinidad in the 1950s were triggered by the tragic suicide of Virginia Woolf.

My grandmother hosted one such salon, not with any sort of regularity, but, as was the custom in the Caribbean, people just dropped by. And what people!! It was there I met Beryl McBurnie, who, as I mentioned earlier, gave me permission to express my admiration for our local culture and reinforced an aesthetic undermined by the British colonizers. McBurnie was a great influence on my father’s sister, my aunt Pearl, who was married to the celebrated opera singer, composer, and actor Edric Connor, who was raised in the coastal village of Mayaro, and with whom she created the first agency for artists of color in London. Edric was the first black actor to perform with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, playing Gower in Shakespeare’s Pericles. After he died, my aunt founded the Negro Theatre Workshop in London with her second husband, the musician and South African activist Joseph Mogotsi. My cousin Geraldine, the daughter of my aunt Pearl and my uncle Edric, was the creator of Carnival Messiah, the grand operatic musical

theater hailed all over the world for its extraordinary costuming, staging, music, dance, and dramatic performances.

I met many other artists in my grandmother’s salon who would influence my decision to become a writer: the Guyanese novelist Jan Carew; his Cuban-born wife Sylvia Wynter, a writer and literary critic; the Trinidadian Holder brothers, Boscoe and Geoffrey. Boscoe and his equally talented brother were choreographers, dancers, actors, pianists, and painters. Years later, not long before my mother died, I ran into Geoffrey Holder at Penn Station in New York.

Ran into him is not accurate. I was on my way to Washington, DC, and one of my past students who was working for Amtrak’s superfast train line, the Acela, spotted me and invited me to wait in the more comfortable Acela waiting room. I saw Geoffrey Holder before he noticed me, shocked that he did at all. I was a girl when my grandmother held sway over that gathering of artists in her drawing room. But there he was, calling out to me: “I know you.” His voice boomed across the waiting room.

He was seated next to a tower of expensive boxed luggage, looking very much the movie star, a gorgeous taupe cape draped across his shoulders and falling elegantly down to his long legs. Heads already turned to stare at him now turned to stare at me. “Nunez. You must be a Nunez,” he declared. “Waldo’s daughter,” I said. He wasn’t sure of Waldo but he knew

the Nunezes. “You have the Nunez face,” he said, his theatrical voice coming from deep within his cavernous chest. He remembered my grandmother, remembered those gatherings in her drawing room. “What a grand dame!”

And my aunt Pearl. “She kept her doors open for all of us struggling artists in London.”

But, of course, he was no longer a struggling artist. He had won two Tony Awards for stage direction and costume design for the Broadway production of The Wiz, and to a generation he will always be Punjab in the movie version of Annie. I also knew that he was a principal dancer at the Metropolitan Opera Ballet. His brother Boscoe was also a dancer. Boscoe had his own dance company that had performed at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in London.

But what I know most about Boscoe is that he was a painter. Today his exquisite paintings can fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars.

There were so many others who spent long hours at my grandparents’ house exchanging ideas, singing and dancing as my grandmother accompanied them on the piano. I owe my love for classical music and opera to these artists, but also to my father who played the violin in his youth and was a fan of Toscanini. The best presents I could bring back home for him after I immigrated to America were gramophone records, and, later, CDs of the music of the great composers. He, in exchange, would take me to the art galleries in Trinidad, where he was a familiar face and had already amassed an impressive collection of paintings.

Years later, as his work wound down when he was in his late seventies, my father renewed his friendship with the Goliahs, a brother and sister, both black Trinidadians who went to Germany after the Second World War, the brother, Schuler, to study medicine, the sister, Beatrice, mostly to accompany him, though she too went to university. Now, both retired, the Goliahs often visited my parents. My mother took a particular delight in Beatrice, who never married and was a bit of an eccentric. She was a wiry-thin, darkbrown woman, older than my mother, a woman my mother believed would in no way attract the attentions of my father. Except she did. For my father found Beatrice interesting too, not for her eccentricity, but for her love of music. Soon he was visiting the Goliahs without my mother.

Sometimes on my trips to Trinidad, he would take me with him, and while Schuler puttered around in his rooms, my father and Beatrice

would sit together sipping port, legs stretched out, while German lieders played on an ancient record player.

So how was my mother to compete? How could she set the mess of her family background against the stability and grandeur of the talented Nunezes? My mother’s ambition for herself became her ambition for her children.

We were programmed to succeed; we had no other choice. Before we reached the starting gate, our mother prepared us. She taught us to read, write, and do simple arithmetic. From our first day in school we were already ahead of all the other children, and my mother made certain we remained there. To come second in class was not good enough. We had to be first.

I was reading by the time I was three years old; my brother David was so prepared that he was barely ten when he won a scholarship to the prestigious St. Mary’s College secondary school.

My mother’s aim seemed to be to prove to her mother-in-law, Georgiana Nunez, that her daughters too could go to St. Joseph’s Convent, the secondary school my paternal aunts attended, and her sons would go to St. Mary’s College like my paternal uncles. Yet my mother wanted more. Her in-laws had all traveled abroad when they were young adults. She wanted us to go abroad too; she wanted us to have a university education in the big countries.

The umbilical cord that bound us to her was cut when we were born. She cut her apron strings if we held on too long. My older sister was dryeyed when the ship carrying her to England left the dock, though she knew it would be years before she would see us or her homeland again.

I too was dry-eyed when, at nineteen, I left my warm and sunny island for the frigid landscapes of Wisconsin where I knew no one.

I try to put my mother’s reasoning in perspective. The mother bird fails if her babies remain in the nest. She succeeds when they fly away on their own. Yet it seems to me that my mother was driven by a more pressing goal.

She needed to prove to the Nunezes that her blood, tainted as she assumed they thought it was, could produce doctors, lawyers, engineers, professors, mathematicians. She would show them. So she sent us away; she pushed us out of our home. And in the end, didn’t her gamble pay off? Three medical doctors, one surgery nurse, two actuaries, one lawyer, two MBAs, one entrepreneur, and me, PhD distinguished professor and novelist, all her children.

Elizabeth Nunez is the award-winning author of a memoir and nine novels, four of them selected as New York Times Editors Choice.

Her memoir Not for Everyday Use won the 2015 prestigious Hurston Wright Legacy Award for nonfiction and is an Oprah online book club selection. Her latest novel Even in Paradise an O, the Oprah Magazine and Essence selection. Nunez’s other novels are: Boundaries, nominated for the 2012 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Fiction; Anna In-Between which won the PEN Oakland Award for Literary Excellence and was long-listed for an IMPAC Dublin International Literary Award; Prospero’s Daughter which was 2006 Novel of the Year for Black Issues Book Review and for Mosaic Magazine. Bruised Hibiscus won an American Book Award, and Beyond `the Limbo Silence won the Independent Publishers Book Award.

Her other novels include Grace; Discretion, which was short-listed for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award; and When Rocks Dance. Most of Nunez’s novels have also been published as audio books, and two are in translation, in Spanish and German. Nunez is co-editor of the anthology Blue Latitudes: Caribbean Women Writers at Home and Abroad. She is the co-founder of the National Black Writers Conference and was director for fourteen years.

She is executive producer of the NY Emmynominated CUNY-TV series Black Writers in America. Nunez has served on the jury for national and international literary prizes/ awards, including the international Dublin IMPAC Literary prize, the Ernest Gaines Literary prize and the Fulbright Award for Creative Writing. Nunez received her PhD in English Literature from New York University. She was the former Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs at Medgar Evers College, the City University of New York, and is currently a Distinguished Professor at Hunter College, the City University of New York.

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Teddy Dwight Frederick is not your average artist. That is certain. Teddy has been able to successfully use various media and materials to create a fusion with his art. The brother is a painter, photographer, videographer, sculptor, and creative director. His images, be it still photography, videography, or sculptures, seem to constantly explore another dimension, of what is possible for art in this era. And so, we’re very pleased to feature the work of this very talented multidisciplinary artist of Grenadian heritage in VISION. What follows is an interview with Teddy, as he shares with us his approach and general philosophy as a visual artist.

VISION: How do you view your role as a creative?

Do you seek to convey particular messages that might be political or even controversial in nature when you are doing an art installment, for instance?

Teddy D. Frederick: My mission as a creative is to challenge myself and the elements around me. In so doing, to create imagery that is provocative, profound, bold and outspoken: that can tell stories in a way they have never been told before, which includes going to places that make people uncomfortable at times, in order to question my own comfort zones. All of this I think should be the goal of art because historically we know that art has been used as a medium to change the mindset of society and the course of history. If I can use 53

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my art to influence societal views on the world around us for the better, then I would believe that’s my mission.

I do not particularly see my art to be controversial; reason being, in recent times, as I start discovering more about myself and my art, I realized that most of my work are centered on people and my connection to others, which allows me to take a more storytelling approach.

Prior to that, my exhibitions portrayed specific issues concerning identity and reflection of human behaviors, but almost alway centered on the human faculty and emotions. In terms of political statements or controversial ideals, I haven’t created such.

VISON: At what age or period in your life did you discover that you have a knack for creating

images and art? And what sort of experiences in particular led to your thinking that you can become an artist and one that uses a multifaceted approach to represent your creative process?

TDF: I can’t tell you exactly what age I discovered I had a knack for art. Art has always been a part of me. Fortunately, I grew up in an environment where I was able to express myself through my art, whether it was by creating items with my hands or expressing it on paper.

If I were to talk about the moment where I walked into that consciousness of being an artist, it would be the moment I decided to relinquish my studies in industrial engineering and pursue fine arts. I think that moment became the defining factor for me, as I knew

in my heart that I wanted to do creative things, though at that time I didn’t quite know what it meant. After completing my course, I had so many questions about what can be done with these skills and abilities, as I couldn’t see myself painting for a living. Not that I didn’t want to, but because painting didn’t feel like it was what I wanted as a career; I just wanted the knowledge of visual arts. With this, I was able to translate it into digital media, film, photography, graphic design, animation, and I felt more comfortable in those realms. After further studies, I started using visual arts, merging it in a physical sense with my photography; so if I were to talk about

more. It gave me a sense of identity and the opportunity to be a little bit different. Grenada is a small place, which isn’t greatly known by the rest of the world, and coming from a source of reference that is unknown like Grenada makes you unique in the grand scheme of things. This has encouraged me to tap even more into that cultural aspect, as it sets me apart, and in the art world that’s what anyone would want, to be able to differentiate themselves from others and to have a signature mark in their field.

a moment in my life where I wanted to do art, it would be that said moment.

VISION: What elements do you tend to rely on most or make your staples?

TDF: I consider myself a multidisciplinary artist. With that being said, I like to dive into different industries and learn from them. I like using different materials and mixed media, so by default my practice reflects that. With a love for the traditional, contemporary and the performance side of art, I have found ways of mixing it all and to include the technology of photography and print. Before I used to focus more on traditional art in my early age, but now due to my love for the arts, I was able to create a signature style that reflects the diversity and complexity of how I view the world.

VISION: How exactly does your Caribbean

background factor in your creative process?

What aspects of the Grenadian and Caribbean culture influence you most as an artist? And how important is it for you to represent such in your art?

TDF: My Caribbean background has been very instrumental in how I perceive my creative process, because growing up there wasn’t much that I could have explored or experimented with; there was a lack of places where I can express my artistic ideas. This in turn, forced me to become creative and innovative. The Caribbean on a whole has a lot of vibrancy, color, rhythm and repetition that I love so much.

Whether it is our food, our people, our culture or our languages, these are the things that have definitely impacted my art. Travelling the world and having the pleasure of collaborating with other artists made me appreciate my roots even

Apart from the Caribbean culture and the Grenadian people, my influence generally comes from society on a whole. The people usually inspire me because of my knack for listening to their stories and trying to articulate them by creating visual representations.

Whether it is Grenada, the Caribbean or the rest of the world, my art will always be centered on this type of campfire stories of others. That’s what I’m most passionate about, people who feel like their stories need to be heard in a visual way and me creating narratives and visuals to aid in getting their messages out into the world.

There is a saying that “artists don’t necessarily make art when they are happy, but instead they channel their sadness and their pain to create their art, hence so many sad songs.” What I got from this at that point was that people can connect through their pains and struggles.

For me, human beings on a whole endure a lot. In the Caribbean, we have a rich history of struggle and part of that struggle is a reflection of our identity. Being a Caribbean man, I feel connected to this identity, this struggle and

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its people. Part of that is because I also feel emotionally driven by our history, and this drive inspires me to represent the people that I connect with in terms of our shared identity and struggle through imagery and my art. Many people ask me how I made this, but many times I would answer by saying the real question is why did I make it. The meaning is always in the why and not the how.

VISON: Contemporary art does not have much of a platform in the region as much as it does in the developed world, not even proportionally.

Why is that? And where might you think focus needs to be to develop a greater appreciation for contemporary art in the region?

TDF: In terms of developing a greater appreciation for art in the region, we can’t just

think about contemporary art, but we need to focus on art on a whole. One of the reasons I believe there isn’t a strong appreciation for art is because there is a lot to be desired in our environments, in our communities and in our societies. There is a need for infrastructural development. There isn’t a place for children leaving school to go to, where they can see themselves developing their craft, and

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it’s only obvious that if they don’t see these opportunities they’d never pursue it. There needs to be financial investments into this industry, so that this generation and those to come can see it as a lucrative proposition for them in terms of their career. If persons who are not educated or experienced in setting up art programs, somehow given the task to run these institutions and to market art regionally and internationally, we are not going to have individuals investing the time and money into

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the arts. All of this would be because of a lack of understanding and appreciation for it. I believe these are the issues we need to address as a society and as a region, as it’s really the only way we will have persons diving head on into the field.

VISION: We have taken notice of your direct involvement in working with singers in the region such as Slatta, in creating music videos. What is the experience like for you (and perhaps you can give us a glimpse as to what it is like for the artistes)?

TDF: One of the things I think about when working with artists, especially those in Grenada, is the fact that I need to use that as an opportunity to create something that is special, that can be used to represent them not only locally but internationally, to able to compete with creative content out there: without the stigma of it coming from the Caribbean, so it has to be of a minimal level.

I also use it as an opportunity to educate the persons involved, who are unfamiliar with the film process. This encourages them to ask the right questions and require more from their content creators which in turn demands and maintains a level of professionalism and creativity from artistic directors throughout the Caribbean. Sometimes from the artist’s perspective, after meeting me, they started considering things that they haven’t before, and this gives me a sense of achievement, as I now know that they are going to start requesting and demanding a higher quality from other creators.

VISION: What’s the difference when you are taking pictures during carnival versus when you prepare for photo shoots? Portraiture seems to be a theme or approach even in your mobile photos, so to speak. There seems to be a focus to do more with the photos in the lab.

Tell us more about such a process (after a photo is taken and your mission to create an image in spite of and despite the elements captured in the shot).

TDF: Firstly, I think carnival was a new experience for me; it was my first time capturing carnival photos. The act of being intimate with a subject matter on the other hand is nothing new to me. So for me being in carnival and being surrounded by so many colors and diverse people, it was really interesting to be able to block the noise out and focus on a moment in time and try to capture it. I’m not shooting

you lack infrastructure, technology and basic tools or equipment, but you still have a story to be told, and you can do precisely that. Nothing is impossible, you can tell that story wherever you are and at whatever stage you might be; however, you need to discover how you can do so in the best way by first experimenting with your options.

VISION: Any major projects are in store for this year, and particularly for a Grenadian audience, including collaborative work with other artists?

a hundred photos but I’m looking for one and sometimes this moment happens in a split second, and in my mind it’s a moment that lasts a longer time. It’s like trying to freeze this frame to capture it and I may not get it with that one person, but I’m constantly looking for it again throughout the event, trying to obtain this one moment in a way that is still captivating.

I think a lot of people don’t understand my process, and the misconception is that I’m actually doing a lot of post-production work.

There is some sort of editing at times, in trying to make things more vibrant by playing with the colors, but in my opinion those things are minimal. I make more of an effort on site to create something that is great, so that the post production does not require much work.

I feel more as an artist using my camera as a tool versus using software. I prefer using my imagination on location or in a said space than

thinking about editing to make it look great.

VISION: What advice would you give an aspiring photographer, or someone seeking to indulge in as many areas of art as you do who may not have much resources at their disposal at the outset?

TDF: For any aspiring artist, you need to have a guiding philosophy. One of my artistic philosophies that guides me is a saying that I always refer to when creating anything: “discovery requires experimentation.” In order to understand where you want to go, you have to discover that you have to experiment. The experimentation process is where you will find out what’s available and is not available to you to get you from point A to B. Your philosophy will also help guide your ability when articulating your story, and in trying to articulate your story you’d be more aware of the elements surrounding you, to aid in bringing across your message. You may be in an environment where

TDF: There are a lot of initiatives on the table to collaborate with many other artists. These things take time and resources but they are definitely in the making. Personally, my energy is focused on engaging the young Grenadian population as much as I can, to try to foster and nurture a film culture here. To train, teach, inspire and give them an opportunity to create and display their efforts. A lot of my energy for the last year has been focused on communicating with schools, other institutions and training agencies to connect with young persons. This year is no different, we are going to continue along that path to create something more tangible, to channel with some of the things they have learnt, so they can put it into practice and have a platform to display. I’m seeking to partner with persons who see the benefit in developing a film culture here in Grenada by starting with the young and creating an avenue for them to put those energies and talents into practice.

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MODERN CINDERELLA Imprisoned by clammy apron strings She squats amidst domestic disorder Dirty dishes, smelly linens Blackened pots and foamy dishwater.

Hastily, she conjures breakfast on the table While vigilantly eyeing the baby’s cradle A highly- strung neurotic woman Nursing ghosts of high dreams and aspirations.

A docile victim whose world revolves around The see-saw whims of her bossy husband An egoistic peacock with a deficient IQ Whose brutal hands are his magic wand. .... pegged on the wall stained by grease Hangs her college degrees.

REFLECTIONS OF A FRIEND You were always very close to me More like a sister than a friend With a heavy heart I pause to reflect Now that your journey has come to an end I remember your solemn face all lighted up With compassion for every soul

Frank Scott ©

The generous hands that delights to give And a heart made of the purest gold.

Though I deeply grieve at your demise To these sweet memories I cling Remembering the fervent way you prayed And the most High praises you loved to sing You still live in my memory, my Katelyn dear To these lasting memories I cling Thanks for the countless joys you brought into my life For standing like the Rock you have always been.

Rest in peace, my sweet gentle soul Rest until eternity end You will forever be always dear to my heart More like a sister than a friend.

Frank Scott ©

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DRUM-DEMIC (VIRUS 1) What is the song to a pandemic to a people dying, when they are all people? When struggling to find a slick enough pattern to call meter? To survive pan demic, we need a talking drum – to syncopate the way a virus move.

No loop of a head nod will mimic this – bass this away, no matter how deep the underwater ripple of the kit’s kick. We need a talking drum, with a slow squeeze and scooped lung to call back to a back bent

in the sun, made to sing long – a moan – a syncopathic (it is the time to invent rhythm we can randomize into tune) To dice roll the manner of a virus move is to multiply by a million how a Minshall mas mimic a river – multiple tides at work from above to below – Here in the middle of the night – waiting for America to tumble into peak infection is to witness icosahedral dice roll – each bounce the possibility of a million points of refracted light to catch and shatter again.

To be caught and shattered again is to try to impose a song on a pandemic.

Only the most ancient indigens have the keys to them pitch and chant of which our beats are part but mere thinned out semantic change variants of something that might talk back to a die unwilling, unable to pick a side on which to land and so must upturn forever until the end of a maddening physics.

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the FBI could cipher and code.

Up late in the middle looking at my child’s ball – its tiny nubs poking out all around – a little coronavirus mirror – imagining my indiscretions the reason for the world’s displacement that maybe I could fulfill my obligations to Yemaja and Olokun and stop all this right now – that I could do my duty to appease the roiling trenches of the oceanic underbelly struggle against my own cowardice and restore a correct music.

You ever feel

you have a song inside you?

That could change how to sing?

That maybe you hear a few times how to make the note but not the note self?

That your brain is a virus with no host to feed from? That the note unheard - is the host?

That you alone are walking this exquisite madness around the village of your interior life on the end of long chain like the baddest dog – in the roughest yard?

Is not just you. You not special.

Everybody hoping for the quiet and the song they can’t sing.

Today even the bottom of the ocean want to help you find that note.

Olokun know what it is to be locked in that chain to be bad-dog leashed

jazz lick strophied into silence

and waiting for the lung to scar

into ridges of death. This is

the pandemic – every song,

everywhere simultaneously

unsung. Only noise

left – roiling the sea, drumming

the air.

Roger Bonair-Agard ©

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LI A V I ST

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D E N PO -19

T VID S O C PO TO DUE

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