Culture: Our Writers Can....

....be as "big" as in well known and influential internationally as our singers.

There was, in the wake of Marlon James' massive Booker Prize win in 2015-16 (shown above), an expected wave of support for Jamaican writers, whether or not they were /are domiciled in Jamaica. James' win dovetailed neatly into similar triumphs for Claudia Rankine (whose book-length poem, Citizen: An American Lyric copped several major awards and nominations both in the US and UK and Kei Miller (immediately below, right), whose similar book-length epic "The Cartographer Tries To Map a WayTo Zion, earned him the UK's Forward Poetry Prize.

Of course, there are many more victories worth savouring from Roaland Watson Grant (immediately below left) whose sly swap trilogy that began with "Sketcher" and continued with "Skid" will soon reach its conclusion with the impending publication of "Nearly Near But Fairly Far"

and poet Tanya Shirley (left) whose two published volumes of poetry to date, "She Who Sleeps With Bones" and "The Merchant of Feathers" continue to be well received her and abroad.

And new names are continually coming to the fore (or re-emerging) form Nicole Dennis-Benn whose less-than-sunny expose of the underbelly of Jamaican life and tourist culture, "Here Comes The Sun"  has been enjoying raves from diverse international presses.

And yet, even with the preceding (and a whole host more that I admittedly haven't mentioned in this missive) there is the sense that the spark is yet to become a fire; there is the concern that Jamaican literature may yet end up like Jamaican film (with apologies to all the great filmmakers now out there: a little too long in the wind and the rain to build the critical mass so needed and even desired. Calabash, the annual* south coast celebration of Jamaican and global writers in tandem is certainly a worthy element (and undoubtedly a catalyst) in this phenomenon, but its not nearly enough in itself. The singers and players had their Trench Town, and even the dramatists had a visible nucleus in the now decaying Ward Theatre and - further "uptown" the Little Theatre and the now defunct Barn. Even the celebrated athletes, always achievers, went to to another level after the establishment of the MVP facility at the UWI (though MVP is obviously not the only worthy athletics centre)

 It may seem excessively nostalgic to be suggesting a salon in this day and age of digital connection, but with social media itself now in some respects saturated and even stratified, the time has well come to "go back to the future" so to speak and develop some kind of physical centre, incubator, hotspot - who knows what to call it for Jamaican writers, not to gather in isolation, but to present themselves to the public in a frequent and meaningful way beyond an annual  festival or even a book launch at the excellent Bookophilia in Kingston or other venues. The nation deserves this, our writers certainly deserve it and the world can certainly stand to receive more great stuff from Jamaica

Literarture: Calabash Lit Fest gives play to Words and Music

Calabash 2016 begins on June 3, at Jakes Resort in Treasure Beach, Jamaica, and ends on June 5. This year's guests include Marlon James, Nicole Dennis-Benn, Kei Miller, Robert McCrum, Eleanor Catton, Paul Beatty, Geoff Dyer, Vladimir Lucien, Pam Mordecai, and Tishani Doshi, among others. Batson-Savage writes:

While the Calabash International Literary Festival remains at its core a literary festival, since its inception, it has had a roaring affair with music which bears fruit in many ways and often skanks its influence onto the way the programme. Over the years the festival has also delivered some memorable musical moments and with Protoje headlining Friday night’s Midnight Ravers, it is gearing up for another.

With three critically celebrated albums under his belt, Protoje is now firmly entrenched among the current Reggae elite, so much so that he now has his own protege, Sevana, who will also be performing at Midnight Ravers. Cala-Clash makes its return on Saturday night with DJs Bambino  Sparks at the controls.

- from Susumba

Books: Channer "Commits Poetry"

On Thursday, September 10, 2015, at 7:30pm, Colin Channer—in conversation with Paul Holdengraber of the New York Public Library—will present his debut poetry collection, Providential (2015); a reception will follow. The launch takes place at Greenlight Bookstore, located at 686 Fulton Street in Brooklyn, New York.

Event description: Hailed by Junot Diaz as “one of the Caribbean Diaspora’s finest writers,” Colin Channer is one of the most compelling voices of our time: a bestselling novelist, co-founder of the Calabash Literary Festival in Jamaica, and a widely published poet. Channer’s debut poetry collection, Providential, is an intimate, moving portrait of violence, family, love, and loss, and a meditation on the figure of the Jamaican policeman. Channer reads from his book and talks with Paul Holdengraber, host of LIVE From the NYPL. The conversation will be followed by a book signing and reception courtesy of his publisher, Brooklyn’s own Akashic Books.

In a recent review of Providential, Tallawah magazine writes: [T]he Jamaican-American scribe, chief founder of the Calabash International Literary Festival, is getting set to break his lengthy self-imposed hiatus with the publication of his debut collection of poems, Providential (Akashic), an anthology centred on an unlikely hero: the Jamaican policeman. At the same time, Providential heralds a slight creative departure for Channer, whose fans have come to associate him with razor-sharp prose laced with wit, humour and keen observations. But critics and colleagues of the author say readers needn’t worry, as Providential more than holds its own as a deeply impressive first collection. “Channer has written a fine set of poems that, like classical myth, starts with the search for the lost father and ends with the found son,” reports bestselling author Russell Ebanks, “the poet in the process replacing the lost father with the found self.”

With this anthology, Channer’s writing life makes a quantum leap forward, taking him that much closer to the ranks of Olive Senior, Lorna Goodison, and Kwame Dawes (among others), who are known for bodies of work that move almost seamlessly between the poetic and the prosaic. And, by all accounts, it’s an achievement for Channer attained through creative risk that pays off. “Not since Claude McKay’s Constab Ballads of 1912 has a writer attempted to tackle the unlikely figure of the Jamaican policeman,” proclaim publishers Akashic Books. “These poems manage to turn intimate relationships between a man and his father, a man and his mothers, a man and his country, and a man and his children into something akin to grace.”

What’s more, the diversity of the collection’s offerings is also bound to delight Channer’s loyalists. “The collection achieves an intimate and lyrical meditation on family, policing, loss and violence,” Akashic further notes. “But the work is enlivened by humour, tenderness and the rich possibilities that come from honest reflection.”