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Posts tagged with: Saint Lucia

Achter de ogen van Derek Walcott

door Michiel van Kempen

Derek Walcott leest een fragment uit zijn poëzie voor. Hij is close-up in beeld. Het gaat over zijn moeder en als het fragment ten einde is legt hij abrupt zijn boek neer, zijn ogen staan vol tranen en hij kijkt naar de camera en de crew die de opname maakt en hij zegt, betrapt, gedesoriënteerd, dat ze hem in de val hebben gelokt. Opeens is de grumpy old man uiterst kwetsbaar geworden. In de zaal bij de Nederlandse première afgelopen zondag van Ida Does’ filmdocumentaire over de grote Caraïbische dichter, kon je een speld horen vallen. Derek Walcott: dichterbij kon je niet komen. read on…

Onthulling muurgedicht Derek Walcott in Den Haag groot succes

 Het gedicht met ervoor de sprekers, v.l.n.r. Michiel van Kempen, bijzonder hoogleraar Nederlands-Caraïbische literatuur, dan met pet Ida Does, maakster van de film over Walcott Poetry is an Island, Kim Emmanuel, secretary van de High Commissioner voor Saint Lucia, Mathias Voges, Gevolmachtigd Minister van Sint Maarten, dan Ernest Hilaire, High Commissioner van Saint Lucia, Ruth van Rossum van de Stichting ArchipelpoëZie, Perry Geerlings, directeur van het kabinet van de Gevolmachtigde Minister van Sint Maarten, en Joost Dekker, ontwerper van de letter waarin het gedicht is gezet. Foto © Herman Schartman. 
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Zondag première Walcott-film van Ida Does

De Nederlandse première van Ida Does’ documentaire film over de Caribische dichter en Nobel prijswinnaar Derek Walcott is as zondag 30 maart om 18:30 uur in het Bijlmer Parktheater. De feestelijke avond wordt opgeluisterd door: voordracht door Antoine de Kom (winnaar VSB Poëzie prijs 2014), violist Yannick Hiwat, Steeldrum music Willy Richardson. De avond wordt gepresenteerd door Paulette Smit en er is een Q&A met regisseur Ida Does.

Er zijn nog enkele tickets beschikbaar! Het belooft een mooie avond te worden, een feest van de Caribische cultuur, poëzie en Derek Walcott’s werk. Voor kaarten, klik hier 

Arubaanse première
Op 4 april is de Arubaanse première in Cas di Cultura, in aanwezigheid van Regisseur Ida Does, Co-Producent Rebecca Roos en Cameraman Ingmar Maduro. Steeldrum door Lee Connor.

Gedicht Walcott onthuld in Den Haag/Poem by Walcott unveiled in The Hague

De Stichting ArchipelpoëZie onthult a.s. vrijdag, 21 maart 2014, een gedicht van Derek Walcott op de gevel hoek Javastraat/Alexanderplein in Den Haag. Foundation ArchipelpoëZie unveiles a poem by Derek Walcott, on Friday 21 March 2014, on the corner of Javastraat/Alexanderpleijn in The Hague
Enkele hoofdlijnen van het programma.
Some focal points of the program.
16:00 Inloop, muziek/  Guests start arriving, music
       
16:30 Start officiële deel/ Start of the official part
 Opening / welcome speech: Ruth van Rossum, voorzitter Stichting ArchipelpoëZie / chairwoman of Archipel Poetry Foundation 
 Short speeches by:
 Michiel van Kempen, bijzonder hoogleraar Nederlands-Caraïbische Letteren, UvA  / professor by special appointment for Dutch-Carribean Literature, University of Amsterdam about Derek Walcott’s visit to The Netherlands for the first Cola Debrot-lecture
Ida Does, filmmaakster, maakster van de documentaire Poetry Is An Island: Derek Walcott / film maker, maker of the documentary Poetry Is An Island: Derek Walcott 
Joost Dekker, ontwerper van de letter Diamant waarin het gedicht is uitgevoerd / designer and typographer of the new letter Diamant, used for the wall poem about typography and the design of the Diamant
Marc Prins, directeur van Stadsdeel Centrum, gemeente Den Haag / Director of the City of The Hague Central District
Onthulling / unveiling ceremony:
–   His Excellency Dr. Ernest Hilaire, High Commissioner for Saint Lucia to the United Kingdom
    De Gevolmachtigde Minister van St. Maarten, ZE M.S. Voges / The Minister Plenipotentiary of Sint Maarten, His Excellency Mr. Mathias Voges
17:05  Borrel, vervolg muziek/ Drinks, music
18:00  Einde bijeenkomst/ End of festivities
Dit is het gedicht van Derek Walcott dat zal worden onthuld/This is Walcott’s poem to be unveiled:
Midsummer, Tobago
 
Broad sun-stoned beaches.White heat.
A green river.A bridge,
scorched yellow palms

from the summer-sleeping house
drowsing through August.

Days I have held,
days I have lost,

days that outgrow, like daughters,
my harbouring arms.

Ida Does: A Brief Interview with Repeating Islands

by Ivette Romero

Film director Ida Does was born in Suriname, and is of French, Chinese, and Dutch-Creole descent. She has worked as a journalist, researcher, writer, and documentary filmmaker for the past two decades and resides in Aruba and the Netherlands. She studied documentary filmmaking at the Media Academy in Hilversum and the Binger Film Institute in Amsterdam. After working at a broadcast company for five years, she went on to become an independent filmmaker and producer in 2007. Does has directed two award-winning documentaries about prominent, national figures of Suriname–freedom fighter Anton de Kom—Peace, Memories of Anton de Kom—and poet Trefossa (Henri Frans de Ziel)—Trefossa: I Am Not I. [See previous posts Forthcoming Film: Derek Walcott, Poetry is an Island and Film: Contributions Needed for “Poetry is an Island, Derek Walcott”.]

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Muurgedicht Derek Walcott in Den Haag

Op vrijdag 21 maart a.s. onthult de Stichting ArchipelpoëZie op feestelijke wijze het zesde muurgedicht in de mooie Haagse Archipelbuurt. Het gaat om een Engelstalig gedicht van de Caraïbische Derek Walcott (Saint Lucia), winnaar van de Nobelprijs voor Literatuur. Zijn gedicht Midsummer, Tobago zal verschijnen op de muur van een Rijksmonument op de hoek van de Javastraat en het Alexanderplein. Het gedicht past bijzonder goed bij de warme uitstraling van deze muur.

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St. Lucia première Walcott-film van Ida Does

De St. Lucia première van de film Poetry is an Island, Derek Walcott van Ida Does is door de tweehonderd genodigden in de William Jefferson Clinton Ballroom van het Sandels hotel in Gros Islet, met langdurig applaus ontvangen. In aanwezigheid van Nobel-laureaat Derek Walcott, regisseur-producent Ida Does, coproducent Rebecca Roos, en de Governor General Dame Paulette Louisy zag het goed opgekomen publiek de documentaire over werk en leven van de dichter Walcott, de eerste gekleurde Caribische schrijver die de Nobelprijs voor de Literatuur won. Walcott won de prijs in 1992.

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Documentaire Ida Does over Walcott in Spaans vertaald

De documentaire film van regisseur-producent Ida Does over Nobelprijswinnaar van de literatuur, dichter Derek Walcott uit St.Lucia, is in het Spaans vertaald en wordt in december vertoond op het Havana Film festival in Cuba. Het Havana Film Festival, officieel: Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano de La Habana, is een van de oudste en meest prestigieuze Film Festivals in het Caribische gebied en focust op de promotie van Latijns Amerikaanse filmmakers. Het Festival vindt jaarlijks plaats in december in Havana.
“Ik sta er weer van te kijken hoe elke taal een geheel eigen dimensie toevoegt. De titel klinkt in het Spaans zo heel anders dan in het Engels Poetry is an islandwordt La poesía es una isla. Prachtig vind ik dat, die eigen taalkleur”, zegt Does.
Het filmisch portret van de dichter ging in september op het Trinidad & Tobago FilmFestival in wereldpremière, in aanwezigheid van de 83-jarige Walcott en zijn familie. “We zijn bezig de film ook in andere talen te vertalen en mikken op een wereldwijze tour langs Filmfestivals” vertelt Does, die in september ook persoonlijk aanwezig was in Port of Spain.
De film heeft inmiddels ook de aandacht getrokken van de Nederlandse nationale tv en wordt volgend jaar uitgezonden in het documentaire programma ‘Het Uur van de Wolf’. Does daarover:” Een mooie plek voor de documentaire in de Nederlandse documentaire wereld. Ik woon en werk voor een groot deel van het jaar in Nederland en ben blij met deze prominente tv programmering. Hierdoor kan een groot kijkerspubliek in Nederland een belangrijk Caribisch verhaal volgen. Want velen weten niets over Derek Walcott, die toch de eerste gekleurde schrijver uit het Caribisch gebied was die de hoogste onderscheiding kreeg voor zijn poëzie.”
[uit Starnieuws, 26 november 2013]

Homerus en Omeros

door Els Moor

‘Zing voor de man van duizend listen, Muze, die zoveel/ Rondzwierf nadat hij de heilige stad van Troje verwoest had…’

Dit zijn de beginregels van de Odysseia van Homerus, het klassieke verhaal over Odysseus, die tien jaar streed in de oorlog om Troje en daarna weer tien jaar moest rondzwerven met allerlei uitdagende avonturen, om thuis te komen. Het is een klassiek werk, evenals de Ilias over de Trojaanse oorlog, dat ongeveer 750 voor Christus werd vastgelegd vanuit de orale verhalen-traditie over goden en helden. Dit is een gegeven dat we steeds weer tegenkomen als we een literatuur vanaf het begin, de mondelinge fase, bestuderen. Kijk naar onze Surinaamse Odysseus: Anansi. Beiden moesten overleven en redden het door hun slimme streken.

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Rappa als Master Writer op Carifesta

Rappa is op voordracht van een commissie van de Henri Frans de Zielstichting uitgekozen om Suriname als Master Writer te vertegenwoordigen in het Carifesta Contingent van Suriname. De H. F. de Zielstichting is vooral bekend vanwege de H.F. de Ziel Cultuurprijs die zij jaarlijks in januari uitreikt aan een prominent persoon in het culturele (literaire) veld. Aan het Master Writers’ programma van Carifesta doet ook de bekende Caribische dichter Kendel Hippolyte van St. Lucia mee. Hij zal een sessie over dichtvormen verzorgen. Van Trinidad en Tobago komt Kim Johnson als Master Writer naar ons land. Hij is Senior Research Fellow en documentairemaker  bij de Academy for Arts, Letters & Public Affairs van de University of Trinidad & Tobago. Hij heeft een flink aantal publicaties over de historie en cultuur van het Caribisch gebied op zijn naam.

John Robert Lee: On Life, Words and Faith

by Dr. Leanne Haynes
John Robert Lee (b. 1948) is a St. Lucian writer who has published several collections of poetry. His short stories and poems can be found in many journals and international anthologies. These include Facing the sea (1986), The Penguin Book of Caribbean Verse (1986), The Faber Book of Contemporary Caribbean Short Stories (1990), The Heinemann Book of Caribbean Poetry (1992) and The Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse (2005). Lee published Sighting and other poems of faith in 2013 and elemental: new and selected poems (Peepal Tree Press) in 2008. In 2007 he published Canticles, a collection of poems illustrated with his photographs. Other publications include Artefacts (2000)Saint Lucian (1988) and Vocation (1975). In 2006, he co-edited with Saint Lucian poet and playwright Kendel Hippolyte Saint Lucian Literature and Theatre: an anthology of reviews, which is recognized as a significant contribution to the documentation of the history of Saint Lucian writing and drama. He is the compiler of a Bibliography of St. Lucian creative writing (2013). He writes an occasional blog at www.mahanaimnotes.blogspot.comHe created Mahanaim Publishing, St. Lucia.
 
Leanne Haynes: What needs to be done to help the St. Lucian arts scene evolve and get the recognition it deserves?
John Robert Lee: Firstly, more creative arts education programmes are needed at all levels of our education system. The arts will evolve when young people come to a better, informed understanding of the arts. This education also creates an audience for the arts, an audience that is informed, understands what is being presented to them, and so they are better able to appreciate and evaluate creative arts.
Recognition that is broad and appreciative begins with the education. Then when groups of artists, informed patrons and Government arts and culture departments begin to recognize and award significant achievements in the arts, with prizes, awards, scholarships and related kinds of recognition, real and substantive evolution will take place. This involves recognition of the work of those who have gone before as well as current arts endeavours.
LH: How’s the momentum of the local arts scene at present?
JRL: The momentum in St. Lucia is very promising. We have just staged a successful arts festival, called Artreach, have launched a re-configured Jazz and Arts festival, created a Creative Industries Ministry in government, so there are some very exciting things happening. Lots of young talent is emerging and many senior artists are presenting new work, across all areas of the arts. Film and fashion are the newest arts that are growing in popularity, and the work of those artists is gaining recognition, even beyond St. Lucia.
 
LH: I have noticed that you are fully embracing new forms of social media (Twitter, Facebook) as a way of artist promotion. How important is it for artists to make this transition in the age of new media?
JRL: I have been involved for many years with traditional media, print and electronic, both as producer and subject of news and interviews. So I am aware of the great changes that digital technology has brought to media, promotional publicity, and information provision. I think artists ought to be aware of what is happening with new media, both for their own work, and as means to inform the public of what they are doing. I have never cared too much for the image of the artist as some special being, off on clouds or in high towers, to whom lowly, less endowed folk must make their way, most worshipfully. Several years ago, I interviewed George Lamming, who said that artists, writers, intellectuals were workers like all other workers. Also, I remember it was Sartre who spoke of the artist as ‘engaged’ in his society. That has always been my approach. So it is important that artists be aware and open to all the exciting things happening in technology and new media, which is also to say that the perennial requirement of the artist to find and make private and hard working time for their own work, remains unchanging. And there is always room for artists who tend to be media and technology-shy.
 
LH: And on the subject of technology- why did you decide to publish your new collection as an e-book as well as in the traditional print form?
JRL: There was no great planning behind that. I was publishing my latest collection of poetry with a print on demand company in the USA and they offered those options. Compared to the cost of producing a book in St. Lucia, it was a good deal for the price. But alongside that international edition, I have produced a local edition of the book, Sighting and other Poems of Faith under my own publishing imprint, Mahanaim Publishing.
 
LH: You are the Information Officer at the Folk Research Centre in SLU. How’s it going there? Any new developments? What role does it play for researcher/artists/general community on the island?
JRL: The FRC remains a great resource for anyone researching the arts and culture of St. Lucia. We have recently created the Harold Simmons Folk Academy to provide more structured teaching in cultural education. Frankly, response has been very poor up to now. We have an invaluable repository of print and audio visual resources, for which we are trying to find money to digitize. Harold Simmons is regarded as the father of modern St. Lucian arts and culture. He was a mentor to Derek Walcott, Dunstan St. Omer, Charles Cadet and that generation of great talents that grew up in the forties.
 
LH: Do you teach creative writing? If so, how does your interaction with creative writers inform your own creative practices? If not, would you consider it?
JRL: I no longer teach, though I have taught Literature, Language, Creative Writing, Drama, Library science. My interaction then with creative writing students was always rewarding, since I learned much from the preparation and from the students themselves. I always learn something from interactions with the work of other creative writers, especially my own contemporaries. Various ways of seeing, of expressing their ideas, their forms and so on. I learn much too from other genres of artists – musicians, painters, sculptors, film makers, theatre people. They all provide images for my own writing, sooner or later.
 
LH: I am always keen to know about the creative processes of writers.  Where do you write? Is there a particular space that puts you into that creative frame of mind?
JRL: My poems, stories and other articles are triggered by all kinds of experiences and influences. A thought, a conversation, something seen on the street, something read, anything and everything. I think a writer is always picking up ideas as they move through their world. Certainly, my faith and the Bible are major sources of inspiration, as I see my life and experiences through my faith. My recent book, Sighting and other poems of Faith, reflect this, as I use my culture, landscape, people, language etc to mediate my faith perceptions. My faith is very much incarnated in my life, world  and experiences. Flesh and blood reality. And then, sooner or later, the ideas and inspiration come together and I write the work. I find I write less now, and poems (which tend to be long) take longer to write. Often now, I take a long time meditating on, thinking about, what I want to write. Eventually, however, the poems come. I try not to worry about writer’s block or dry periods, which happen often.
As to spaces for working: I generally use my personal home study. I can’t write on beaches or in parks. I just enjoy the atmosphere and people and collect images out there. I find now I write almost totally on the computer, where before I always wrote first in longhand and then typed up. I can think ok on the keyboard, and even manage my forms there. I would say I am a formalist in form, like strict formal structures, even while I also like using freer, more experimental forms. In a recent 7 part poem on the work of young St. Lucian artist Gary Butte, I took a kind of intuitive approach to his art, allowing the very distinctive work to pull, as it were, the poems out of me. Kind of like jazz improvisation, with musicians playing against each other. Kamau Brathwaite’s response (I had used some of his lines as epigraphs) was that the work didn’t seem to be mine!
A lot of my writing, especially where I am working with images (art or photos), is something like the creation of icons, where the monks do all kinds of spiritual preparation to prepare themselves to be channels of spirit. Not that I go into all that. But where I am working on religious themes (as in ‘Canticles’), my approach is very much like that. I have a poem in Elementalcalled ‘writing the ikon’ where I describe, in verse, the approach. By the way, ‘writing the ikon’ is the term used by ikon-art makers, a great image for a poet producing word icons!
 
LH: Derek Walcott describes you as ‘a Christian poet’ – what do you think of the term?
JRL: I have no problem with the description. I tend to avoid labels, but that one I accept. I am a Christian poet, in the line and tradition of John Donne and the metaphysicals, T.S. Eliot (my great modern influence), Gerard Manley Hopkins, and prose writers like C.S. Lewis, Chesterton, Dorothy Sayers, and others. My Christian faith informs my vision, my thinking, my creative work, and pretty much all else. One of my few remaining ambitions is to be included in an Anthology of Christian poetry, alongside those all time greats. Not only for my personal accomplishment, but to see Caribbean Christian poetry take its place with universal, international, timeless poems of faith.
I am also aware of myself as a Christian and Christian artist in the pluralistic democracies of the West, multi-faith, multi-cultural, largely secular, largely hostile to the evangelical faith I hold. I often think that my artist friends are not sure about me, that ‘church bwoy’, and my church colleagues are also suspicious of me as ex-Rasta, friend of irreverent artists and suspect people, etc. So I am often in a middle ground, left to find my own way, which is fine with me. However I must say that I believe I have gained mutual and genuine respect from both sides, and others in my island world, including politicians.
And while Christianity has been such a great religious influence in the West Indies, I don’t find many significant Christian writers. So I am aware I am in virgin territory. Contemporary Poets like Kwame Dawes, Lorna Goodison and older poets like A J Seymour and John Figueroa have published religious/Christian poems, but I am not sure they would describe themselves as “Christian poets.” I had prepared a proposal some years ago for an anthology of Caribbean religious/or Christian poetry, but it hasn’t gone anywhere.
 
LH: Your new collection, Sighting and Other Poems of Faith, is interspersed with your own photographs. How long have you been interested in visually recording your home island of St. Lucia?
JRL: I have been doing photography since I was in school. I have remained amateur. But photography, my visual art, like my involvement in drama, all impact on my writing. My writing is descriptive, visual, dramatic, with movement, which come from the photo eye and my acting and directing drama experience . Film is also an influence.
 
LH: This fusion of the visual and textual not only firmly anchors your new collection in the Caribbean but also serves to represent St. Lucia and its mass of writers and visual artists. You essentially bring together two forms here as you did in your 2007 collection Canticles. Is this a form you want to continue with in future collections? Why do you choose to combine the two elements?
JRL: I have enjoyed bringing the visual and textual together in my work. In my recent public readings, in St. Lucia and at international festivals, I have been using visual projections with my readings. At some points, I also use music. I have no particular reason for the fusion. I don’t remember even when I started.
The challenge of course is how the poems will stand up when/if the images are removed. While some of the poems are directly related to the images, I also try to write so that the poems can stand on their own.
 
LH: ‘Prodigal’, one of the poems in your new collection, is dedicated to Kendel and Jane Hippolyte. What influence/impact have these specific writers had on your own creative outputs?
JRL: The new collection is dedicated to The Church. The poem ‘Prodigal’ is dedicated to Jane and Kendel, who with McDonald Dixon, are my closest contemporaries and writing friends, at home. Derek Walcott is of course a mentor, and has been kind over the years. Through him, I, and Kendel and others at home, have met major writers like Seamus Heaney, Arthur Miller and Yusef Komunyakaa. Through Derek, I have interviewed for television, many of these. Many of my poems are dedicated to fellow writers and friends and mentors (like Walcott, Brathwaite, John Figueroa, Lorna Goodison) who have been supports, inspirations. And yes, over the years, we at home have somehow helped each other to keep going in these beautiful, but tough and philistine home towns, in which it can be difficult to keep being creative. But St. Lucia is a unique place for writers. No one can underestimate or overestimate the influence of the Walcott brothers and their generation on us who came after. Kendel Hippolyte has often pointed to the real literary tradition that has evolved in St. Lucia. And somehow, we, the younger ones who followed, have avoided destructive quarrels and divisions, and have generally supported each other, even as we move in our own directions, and remain fiercely independent.
  
LH: Christianity is obviously a major theme in your new collection and the collection’s  title poem ‘Sighting’ is a specific example of this. Here Bob Marley, for example, is described as ‘Prophet’. How then does faith, for you, specifically allow for an understanding of the Caribbean experience?
JRL: My faith, founded on the Bible, shows me the Caribbean as part of the human experience. A beautiful but fallen world, in need of redemption, like everywhere else. And if God made oaks, willows and apples, He also made coconuts, hibiscus, egrets and all that is part of my world. So what is true for the world, rich or poor, is true for us in the Caribbean, as human beings, made by God, in need of His Grace and mercy and love, as all humankind. So that basic, common faith of Christians, informs the poems I write out of and about my Caribbean experience. And my faith enables me to cope with all the challenges of my life in this part of the world. As I wrote in one of my poems, I try to practice ‘the simple faith of a simple man.’ Christ is also incarnate in my world, and I make Him so in my poetry. I try to avoid the politics of religion, self-righteous religiosity, fully aware of the mixed history of religion and my own Christianity. No room, given that background, for self-righteous posturing. I try to live a Bible-based Christian faith, even within the context of formal ‘churchianity’. While I wouldn’t describe myself as liberal, I try to hold a moderate approach in my faith. But the poems speak of where I live my faith.
 
LH: I might then extend this to another prominent theme in the collection: landscape. How do your beliefs converse, even interact, with the fauna and flora of the island? (This question springs to mind  from reading From ‘Silver Point, Easter’).
JRL: As I said earlier, God the Creator made the banana and avocado trees in my garden, as He  made Wordsworth’s daffodils. So my God walks on my beaches, eats my creole bread, ascends from my mountains, and so on. His people dance my dances, dress in our creole costumes, play our musical instruments to praise Him. All this you will find in poems like ‘Canticles’ and ‘Silver Point’. I sing of Incarnation as in the poem ‘elemental’ and others.
 
LH: Actually, I think reading ‘From Silver Point, Easter’ raises a key point about poetry and its ability to document, even trace the changes that occur on a small island such as St. Lucia. You talk about the Castries fire of 1948 and how the streets are now different. As an archivist and documenter of the cultural and literary progression of your home island, and also further afield (here I am thinking of your portrayal of the destruction caused by the Haitian earthquake in the poem ‘Cathedral’) how important is it to map these changes, natural disasters, and cultural practices?
JRL: The poet/writer/artist is also a chronicler, an archivist of their times. So I think the good artist does this anyway. And they map the changes that occur in their own lives as Kendel Hippolyte does for Castries and St. Lucia. So does McDonald Dixon, my personal mentor. The committed, engaged artist is involved at all levels in the life of his society.
  
LH: ‘Incarnation’ is dedicated to the St. Lucian writer and academic Vladimir Lucien. How should established writers like yourself provide guidance to younger writers earlier on in their careers?
JRLCertainly, talents like Vladimir  (Lucien) must be helped by veterans like myself to negotiate the treacherous waters. It is easy to get discouraged, become judgmental, have misplaced expectations, and give up, if someone who has been there does not offer a helping hand. Not in a condescending, patronizing way, but with genuine respect for the new talent, and a concern to, somehow, protect, where possible, the young, sensitive spirit, till they find their strength.
 
LH: What’s next for you Robert? 
JRL: I have just completed a 200 page Bibliography of St. Lucian Creative writing, which I had started in the eighties, abandoned for a number of years, and then recommenced. I hope the Cultural Development Foundation in St. Lucia, who asked me to complete it, will publish it in time for the ACLALS conference here in August. I am also working on a new collection of poems for Peepal Tree Press. So I am keeping busy, even as I continue to work at the Folk Research Centre.
I also keep busy with my church, though I am not doing much preaching or teaching these days.
And keeping my eye on the movements of young artists and writers like those associated with ARC.
Dr. Leanne Haynes
Leanne Haynes has recently finished a PhD at the University of Essex, which was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research. Her thesis focused on St. Lucian literature and mapped out the island’s rich literary landscape. She also completed her MA (Postcolonial Studies) and BA (Literature) at the University of Essex. Haynes has presented material at conferences in the UK and Europe. She is a keen creative writer and amateur photographer, with publications in the UK and US.
 
[from Art, Recognition, Culture, June 10th, 2013]

World Première of Derek Walcott’s O Starry, Starry Night!

Nobel Laureate Professor Derek Walcott has brought together an outstanding international cast for the world premiere of his new play—O Starry, Starry Night!—which looks at the turbulent relationship between Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin. The play will  premiere at the Lakeside Theatre at the University due to the close links with its creative team and Essex academics.

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