The Antigua and Barbuda Review of Books Volume 6 Number 1 Summer 2013
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
THE ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA REVIEW OF BOOKS VOLUME 6 NUMBER 1 SUMMER 2013 Poetry with Rowan Ricardo Phillips John Hewlett Marcus Jeffers and Edgar Lake Patrick Lewis on Kortright Davis George Roberts on Kortright Davis Gregory Frohnsdorff on Frederick Jewett Leara Rhodes on Jamaica Kincaid Jessica Byron on Paget Henry Robert Glen on John Luffman Edgar Lake on Mrs. Lanahan Neil Roberts on Paget Henry And Much More……. THE ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA REVIEW OF BOOKS A Publication of the Antigua and Barbuda Studies Association Volume 6 • Number 1 • Summer 2013 Copyright © 2013 Antigua and Barbuda Studies Association Editorial Board: Ian Benn, Joanne Hillhouse, Paget Henry, Edgar Lake, Adlai Murdoch, Ermina Osoba, Elaine Olaoye, Mali Olatunji, Vincent Richards Paget Henry, Editor The Antigua and Barbuda Studies Association was founded in 2006 with the goal of raising local intellectual awareness by creating a field of Antigua and Barbuda Studies as an integral part of the larger field of Caribbean Studies. The idea for such an interdisciplinary field grew out of earlier “island conferences” that had been organized by the University of the West Indies, School of Continuing Edu- cation, in conjunction with the Political Culture Society of Antigua and Barbuda. The Antigua and Barbuda Review of Books is an integral part of this effort to raise local and regional intellectual awareness by generating conversations about the neglected literary traditions of Antigua and Barbuda through reviews of its texts. Manuscripts: the manuscripts of this publication must be in the form of short reviews of books or works of art dealing with Antigua and Barbuda. Thus reviews of works by writers and artists from Antigua and Barbuda such as Peregrine Pickle, Mary Prince, Tim Hector, Ashley Bryan, Novelle Richards, Gregson Davis, Jamaica Kincaid, Edgar Lake, Althea Prince, Keithlyn Smith, Adlai Murdoch and others will be particularly welcome. We will also welcome commentaries on reviews we have published. Reviews should be no longer than six double-spaced pages, with minimal if any footnotes. Submit reviews to Paget Henry, editor, as word documents at [email protected] for consideration. No portion of the Antigua and Barbuda Review of Books may be reproduced for commercial purposes without the permission of the Antigua and Barbuda Studies Association. Cover art: Photograph “Kortright Davis” by Gwendolyn Fevrier-Roberts Production layout and design by Mary D. Norris, Graphic Services, Brown University Table of Contents Editor’s Note.................................................................................................3 CELEBRATING EMANCIPATION UWI Address: Receiving an Honorary Doctorate ............................................6 Kortright Davis Kortright Davis’ Emancipation Still Comin.........................................................14 Patrick Lewis Church Music in Our Nation Since Independence: Are We made Like Jesus? ..........................................................................27 George Roberts Kortright Davis and Caribbean Emancipatory Theology: A Review Essay ..........................................................................................37 Paget Henry FEATURE ESSAYS ... 1 Frederick Stiles Jewett: A Connecticut Poet and ... Newspaperman in Antigua..........................................................................53 Gregory Frohnsdorff Through an Enlightened Lens? John Luffman’s View of Antigua in the 1780s .....................................................................80 Robert Glen Antigua and the Antiguans: The Question of its Authorship.............................112 Edgar Lake How He Kick She .....................................................................................147 Radcliffe Robins ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA MEN’S POETRY John Hewlett Slave Ship ............................................................................................155 African-Antiguan –West Indian ..............................................................156 Roots....................................................................................................158 Mother..................................................................................................160 It is Easy ..............................................................................................162 Cool Out...............................................................................................163 Rowan Ricardo Phillips Shadows in the Name ..........................................................................165 The Difficult Archangel: On the Poetry of Wilson Harris..........................168 Edgar Lake To Gary.................................................................................................176 Footprints of Pastures...........................................................................177 Marcus Jeffers Island Boy ............................................................................................179 Go James .............................................................................................180 Living Ain’t Easy When You Are Black and Breezy ..................................181 Ambushed............................................................................................182 City Lights.............................................................................................183 Eddie is on it........................................................................................184 Brother Roland .....................................................................................186 Bravo....................................................................................................187 THE SHORTER REVIEWS The First Guitar: A Review of The Ground by Rowan Ricardo Phillips............189 ... Amir Jaima 2 ... Caliban’s Reason and African Traditional Reasoning.....................................193 Patricia Agupusi Kincaid’s and Danticat’s Stages of Loss and Grief ....................................203 Leara Rhodes Henry’s Bird: Political Philosophy, Political Economy and Late Modern Leadership.....................................................208 Neil Roberts Paget Henry’s Shouldering Antigua and Barbuda: The Life of V.C. Bird ..................................................................................221 Jessica Byron Partial List of Antiguan and Barbudan Books............................................226 Notes on Contributors ..............................................................................230 Editor’s Note Looking over the rich contents of this issue of the Antigua and Barbuda Review of Books, its feature essays, its poetry and its reviews, I am truly delighted to pen my editor’s note. In addition to furthering our project of reconstructing our neglected literary tradition and reviewing its books, this issue is special for three crucial reasons. First it takes up an aspect of Antiguan and Barbudan writing that we have not addressed before: its reli- gious/theological dimension. A field of Antigua and Barbuda Studies as a distinct feature of a University of Antigua and Barbuda would certainly require the inclusion of this dimension of our history of thinking and writ- ing. This engagement with the religious side of our literary tradition takes the form of a revisiting of the path-breaking book, Emancipation Still Comin’ by the Rev. Dr. Kortright Davis. The special occasion for this revis- iting is the 22nd anniversary of this important theological work. To perform this celebration, I have joined with Dr Patrick Lewis and Dr. George Roberts to reflect on and evaluate the impact of Davis’ book. The second reason that makes this issue special is its very important four feature essays. The first is by Gregory Frohnsdorff. In his essay, ... Frohnsdorff gives us a very wonderful account of the life of Frederick Stiles 3 Jewett. Jewett was a poet and journalist from the American state of ... Connecticut who live in Antigua from about 1845 to 1853. During this time he served as the editor of The Antigua Observer, and also founded his own paper, The Antigua Weekly Times. Frederick Jewett is definitely some- one that Antiguans and Barbudans should know more about. For example, in my book Peripheral Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Antigua, here is all that I could say about Jewett: “the only glimpses of the poetry of the period come from a collection of poems by an unknown poet, FSJ, entitled Court of Content and other Poems. These poems are very English in orien- tation.” In short, I completely missed the American features in his writing. Our second feature essay is by Robert Glen, who has written for us before. In his essay, Glen focuses on John Luffman, the author of the 1789 text, A Brief Account of the Island of Antigua. This essay is not primarily a review of Luffman’s text, but much more an examination of who Luffman was, his life, and what he was doing in Antigua. It is very well researched and makes for great reading. The third of our feature essays is by our own Edgar Lake. Like Glen, Lake focuses his essay on a very well known historic text, Antigua and the Antiguans. However, even though it contains an extensive review of the con- VOLUME 6 NUMBER 1 SUMMER 2013 tents of the book, the primary aim of Lake’s essay is definitely not to review this 1844 text that has already been extensively reviewed. Rather, the pri- mary aim of the essay is to take up the question of the authorship of this work on Antigua. Was it really written by Mrs. Lanaghan?