At the beginning of the year I felt compelled to pencil in my diary the birthday of one of our Caribbean icons. Why, perhaps because of some psychological, sociological or symbolic significance?
Today I give thanks for the expression of his individuality. I embrace his passion, his narrative poetry, and his imagistic style. He writes with such intensity and clarity that even after years of writing them his poems still seems eternally fresh.
With my urgent need to express how I feel on his eighty second birthday (82nd) words fail me. So to use the words of Wordsworth, another iconic poet who died (in 1850) many years before Walcott was born; Walcott’s poetry is a “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.”
Derek Walcott’s works have all the hallmarks of great poetry having achieved such literary success; Nobel Prize for literature in 1992, and the T.S. Eliot Prize in 2011. He is an excellent example of what one can achieve as a poet. I am forever enriched by his knowledge. As a Caribbean poet Walcott’s spirit is intertwined in my literary experience as there will always be an allegiance to and gratitude for him.
Happy Birthday Honorable Derek Walcott.
(In St Lucia Derek Walcott’s country of birth his birthday January 23 is a national event.)
Excerpt taken from White Egrets by Derek Walcott appended:
Be happy now at Cap, for the simplest joy-
For a line of white egrets prompting the last word,
For the sea’s recitation re-entering my head
With questions it erases, canceling the demonic voice
By which I have recently been possessed; unheard,
It whispers the way the fiend does to a madman
Who gibbers to his bloody hands that he was seized
The way the sea swivels in the conch’s ear, like the roar
Of applause that precedes the actor with increased
Doubt to the pitch of paralyzed horror
That his prime is past. If it is true
That my gift has withered, that there’s little left of it,
If this man is right then there’s nothing else to do
But abandon poetry like a woman because you love it
And would not see her hurt, least of all by me;
So walk to the cliff’s edge and soar above it,
The jealousy, the spite, the nastiness, with the grace
I am in deep thought about what Dutch born organizational sociologist, G. Hofstede suggests. He implies that culture manifests itself in for forms symbols, heroes, rituals and values. In my everyday reality a part of this means that certain objects can have a particular meaning to an individual. At this moment I am glancing at the poppy I purchased for Remembrance Day as it lies on my book shelf with such symbolic potency.
I recall being in primary (elementary) school and paying ten cents for a poppy, now I pay one dollar but I guess it equals the standard of living in real goods. Back then we had two options a poppy with a pin and the other with the green stem which cost slightly more. Of course I always preferred the one with the green stem it was slightly bigger and more appealing, as it was versatile; a girl could wear it in her hair and not worry about being pricked. For me as a girl or even as a young adult Remembrance Day was associated with impressive ceremonies, the moving sounding of the Last Post.
War to me as a primary school student was just a casual thought of fallen soldiers pushed to the forefront just for a day. The evanescent image of War perhaps comes from a weak sense of history. As I got older and studied Global Economics the War took on more significance. I learned about the Bretton Woods Agreement, the Gold standard etc. and many more developments which arose out of war. I never knew my grandfathers part in the War until his death. He did not speak about that part of his life. When the guns were fired at his military funeral the thought of fighting in war took on more significance.
I have been conducting a research on my family tree and I came across a very close relative. The photograph revealed that he was a soldier of war buried in England. Growing up his siblings never talked about him in reference to the war just that he died. Maybe I was too young to understand. It was not until this Remembrance Day when Montserrat remembered the fallen soldiers and the names were revealed on the newly constructed cenotaph I realized that the same relative was the said soldier buried in England. Yes World II has a new face this year as it has captured my attention with immediate importance.
The rituals of Remembrance Day 2010 has come and gone but it has left an affecting memory. So as we continue to call to mind the heroes and my very own relative Alfred Wade, who fought. We also remember those who have died in the two World Wars and other conflicts. Let us remember the supreme sacrifice that they made so we may value life, live freely and enjoy the way we now live. I should mention that G. Hofstede went on to suggest that each person has within themselves several layers of culture which may be conflicting. I am finding out more and more about myself as time passes and my layers of culture are revealed to me through history. What about your life have you recently discovered and how has the past influenced your present day reality.
Appended is an excerpt taken from the article ‘A Global Declaration of Interdependence by Mark Goulstron. Since September 11, 2001 the call for interdependence is even more imperative.
Mark Goulstron highlighted that as September 11th, 2011 approaches that we all must consider the following factors:
As safe and secure as you believe you are is as vulnerable as you can turn out to be.
We are more alike than we are different in that:
none of us like to live in fear;
a rush to anger can make all of us act hastily and foolishly;
feeling dismissed and disdained can bring out the worst in anyone;
we love our children;
we should respect our elderly (but don’t take or make the time to do so);
the measure of a civilization is how we treat those who have hurt us and who are hurting among us.
3. Be it terrorists or “blinded by greed” capitalists or “deaf and dumb and siloed” officials, special interests will always tyrannize the common good.
4. We can’t get much done by ourselves and so we need to find a way to work together.
A few years ago I visited The International Slavery Museum, Liverpool England. While visiting the museum it seemed as if I was virtual synchronous (shifting place but not time) with history. It was as if a time portal opened and I can see the past with my eyes. I read books in school’ Nelson’s West Indian History, A Pre-Emancipation History of the West Indies etc. but the full impact of the brutality of slavery was not so tangible until that morning in the museum.
Did I hear someone just ask if she is really writing about slavery, emancipation again? Wait; allow me to quickly diffuse your tension about my obsession of emancipation this week. Firstly, it is the week in which we celebrate the anniversary of emancipation; I am only a vehicle to remind you that it would have troubled our ancestors if they would have known that we would be forgetful of their historical milestones, when we forget. If you don’t believe me check the inscription when you visit The International Slavery Museum that reads “People need to remember about slavery. It pains the ancestors when we forget.” Secondly, I am trying to understand my past and what matters to me; thus enabling me to have a more meaningful opportunity to integrate the pieces of my life in new ways. Thirdly, I owe it to my stakeholders (me [mind, body spirit] husband, child, community) to impart what I have learned. Fourthly I hope that my enriched connections/ experiences may be of some benefit to you.
In the Slavery museum there were black and white photographs, models of the masters’ home. Additionally there were models of the slave ships and the slave quarters. There were maps of the slave triangle, replicas of slave huts and there were distinctive accounts that varied in drama and suspense. The exhibits were also in the form of interactive computers that narrated stories of slaves and there were audio enactments of the dehumanizing ways they were physically and mentally tortured.
There were European accounts justifying the inhumane buying and selling of African men, women and children. True accounts of slavery, like those in the museum informs you of the European view of African culture being barbaric thus justifying their actions. Similarly, there was an elderly black man passionately narrating his story: his surname was given to his ancestor by a slave master. He along with the remainder of his family still did not know anything about their origins and can only trace their family tree so far.
Likewise, it was also there I learned about the song ‘Amazing Grace’ written by John Newton; the hymn that we bellow in church with such conviction, as if our sins parallel that of the Hymn Writer. When John Newton became a Christian he gave up his trade as a slave-trader he became an Abolitionist, Hymn Writer and wrote that said song:
Amazing grace how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost but now I’m found
Was blind but now I see
Unquestionably, the museum grabbed my attention as there was a tug, a power, a force that caused me to respect all aspects of life. It has been quiet some time since but as I replay my experience that day and I still feel incoherent from such a profound and overwhelming experience.
A global alarm was sparked this weekend past as we awaited the United States of America (US) lawmakers to strike a deal to avert a possible August debt default. I wondered about the coincidence of the Emancipation Holiday looming. This weekend was also the celebration of the Emancipation proclamation and coincidently this crisis has been whispered in certain circles, even by members of the Congressional Black Caucus, as an attack on his ethnicity.
Naturally given the time of year I reached back into our ancestral experiences. Upon doing this my train of thought flickered from democracy vs. Plantocracy. Plantocracy is a form of government in which the planters use their power to benefit themselves Whereas Democracy a form of government in which people are given a say. Can the Republicans be compared to the planters that use a persuasion tactic, power, to influence the electorate?
My train of thought also wandered onto Derek Walcott’s poem Forty Acres in his book White Egrets. The poem Forty Acres was dedicated to Barak Obama as a reference to the term forty acres and a mule. Every slave was promised forty acres and a mule upon being freed. Derek Walcott compares Obama to a freed slave and the crowds as fields he walks through. He compares the challenges Obama has to face to the hard work that lay ahead of the freed slave. In my estimation it seems as if the mule turned out to be the lawmakers, those who are stubborn and unmoved by the urging of Obama’s hand but have their obstinate minds made up. In this case the distinguished President got many mules.
Indeed the President has realized his dream of being the 44th President of the United States but undoubtedly he is still experiencing prejudice and discrimination thus the Tea Party succeeding in turning a United States Senate tug-of-war into a full-blown global conflagration. I can now hear Jessie Jackson praying ‘Keep Hope alive.” As Obama turns fifty years old, and tries to recover from the ‘psychological and physical strains’ of his job, he remains an inspiration for young and old around the world as a symbol of hardiness, much like the black slaves of old.
In life we will soar, which no doubt will be extraordinarily thrilling and rewarding, but there will always be something or someone with impatient taunts, institutional pathology attempting to make us feel incomplete. We are at the behest of our thoughts as we are ultimately driven by them. So in the times when we feel stripped and intimidated we must allow our positive thoughts to nurture and guide us. We must, hence at the most wearisome of times relinquish those opinions that give us grief. Let us walk tall, proud and visible as symbolic representations of the journey from our own forms of slavery to the true concept of freedom; which is feeling whole and complete in spite of…
As I rummaged through my thoughts on this Ash Wednesday and co-incidentally International Woman’s Day I pondered about things which concern women. I thought also about the abrupt and unforeseen changes that may occur in our lives. Events may transform us physically, emotionally and intellectually. As women we worry about and are thankful for many things. I would like to take some time to reflect on some of them with you.
We are thankful for connections, peaks (academic pursuits, vocational quest), troughs, timeless dedication to self and family. We give thanks for expression of individuality, embracing our passions, the health of love ones, and our boundless imagination. Our unselfconscious goodness, concern or lack thereof for what others may think about us. We rejoice at feeling youthful/vigorous, sense of control, and growing number of choices at our finger tips. Those places that offer a safe cover, shielding and buffering our children and spouses as they journey through life, reconciliation, death, life (sun, soil, food, water, talents, gift), peace, relief, pleasure of commitment.
Many yearn to look younger and it feels so good when someone thinks we are younger in terms of physical beauty let us also be thankful for the gift of maturity as we celebrate being a woman. My choices of thanks are few in comparison to wide reaching needs and the diversity of women worldwide and there may be a few more you may wish to add.
I will end by saying that, as we move purposefully in a solitary way this Ash Wednesday as we steady ourselves against the tides of life, one incontrovertible truth is that women are wonderfully made and are naturally beautiful. Let us celebrate this and embrace it.
Recently I watched this video that my younger cousins and her friends where in awe about. This was really a solemn video and quite compelling as the artist Trey Songz immerses himself in the story. The story is about a young wife being called off to the war and leaves her husband and two year old daughter behind. She is killed in the line of duty and they delivered the news to her husband. Amazing! Can you believe this is everyday reality for most soldiers and their families? There is a lot we really take for granted in this life. Whatever we decide to do today let us call to mind the fallen, those who have served in fighting wars, both living and departed. Let us also pray for all those who are currently in the line of duty or who are preparing to leave. Let us commit to memory those who have died, their sacrifice and legacy that live on in the spirit of those who continue to serve. They are missed.
The events that unfold yesterday in The United Kingdom can not escape my blog posts and have left an indelible print as the word dignity is etched in my mind. I am still taken aback about the dignified manner in which Gordon Brown the former British Prime Minister left number 10 Downing Street yesterday. These days we are bombarded by Leaders refusing to step down or refusing to accept the fact that they have lost in the polls or it is time to retire. Yes the constitution in Westminster may have dictated his actions or his impudent bid for power may have failed, nonetheless he faced his challenges and he conceded. The people have spoken, he listened and he did not stand on his dignity, he left. If someone says that you are a person of dignity it speaks volumes to your character. I hope we all can learn from his example no matter our situation. I wish him well!
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