Winner of the 2015 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature K E Means That Even Though They Are Able to Your Influences Were Varied and Diverse
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
P 2 BOOKSHELF BOOKSHELF 3 P B s o d An Interview with Vladimir Lucien: o n Winner of the 2015 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature k e means that even though they are able to your influences were varied and diverse. For sink into the soil after it is poured. An generation or newer voices (irrespective of best be able to account for outside the blur questions and they are still there. So even VL: My father wrote. He recited poetry e k easily keep up with what is happening in the some reason, I felt a bit of Yeats in this analysis of the ground covered by age) are re-shaping an understanding of of flux which I am part of. when I remark with a great degree of often but never published a collection, n o Caribbean poetry and/or introducing new I think it’s safe, though, to say something optimism about the appearance of more though he had a collection of poems put d o region via the web or frequent visits, living in book. Can you talk a bit about the poets Caribbean thinkers and writers and the US or elsewhere may inflect certain who have influenced you? The poets whose obeahmen and so on. If I had to find my breath, styles, themes into about the continuous development and Caribbean writers who are white, people together in a folder at home. But I think his s B corners of experience, and there may develop styles you might borrow from or attempt to way out of seeing “essences,” out of that Caribbean growth of strong national consciousness. take offence. Why? “People should just be greatest influence has been my a predilection for or an imperative to deal with borrow from? What about the poets you kind of stasis, then I had to at least attempt You have had some splendid national writers.” Okay. The key word there is understanding of poetry as something to be these aspects of experience that living in the simply love first and foremost? to understand that movement, that march anthologies released of late in “just”… inconsequence. But we are in the shared. He shared poetry with us all the US throws into sharp relief. This is one aspect of time and space, as I joined in with a Jamaica, Caribbean. What essentially has changed time, even though we did not understand it of Caribbean literature. Although it isn’t as VL: Well, I am one of, I think, many poets people or time or spirit which I felt that I Trinidad, St with the mass of white or black persons in all. This, perhaps, is why I place so much prominent now, you also have the who are not strictly Walcottian or was intrinsically a part of, if not Lucia, St these societies? So why do we expect that emphasis on being a good performer of my ambivalence and the inclination to flight of the Brathwaitian. It’s a dichotomy many of us had “essentially,” then certainly because we Martin and, I our literature is magically transcending that work and the work of others. After every persona at home. I wondered about the other the good fortune of being able to disregard to shared, in time-and-space, a journey. am sure, reality? You cyah go over it, you have to go satisfactory reading, I feel like I have aspect: those who are unequivocally here, some degree. That dichotomy, as I suspect it elsewhere. I tru. Mi cyah deal with that airy-fairy published a new collection! Or something whether it is because they can’t leave or don’t did when it was more influential, obscured SM: I remember hearing mention of you mark this business. You have good works: so! That moment of sharing is important, want to or do not have plans to. I mean in the the channelling and influence of several other years back, in Barbados, when I was change in two entertaining and to use the new lingo though I’m not sure many poets see it that vein of writers like Tanya Shirley or Andre poets on Caribbean writing. In Jamaica, in asking around about poets to watch for in videos I watch “badass” ????. Recently, at the Congrès des way. There are many poets who are okay Bagoo or, further back, early Derek Walcott or poets like Kei Miller or Tanya Shirley, you see the Caribbean. That was in 2012. The ad infinitum: an Ecrivains de la Caraïbe in Guadeloupe, there with being bad or mediocre performers or Eric Roach in spite of his ambivalence. Roach, the influence, for instance, of Lorna Goodison rumour was that there was a very interview with was a panel tracing Caribbean writing to the readers of their own work. And some who I think, is the most interesting example in the on modern Jamaican poetry. Or in my case, talented poet in St Lucia who was Kamau Brathwaite early diaries and personal writings of just aren’t performers or readers but simply way he was ambivalent but was too much Anthony McNeill. working on a manuscript but who conducted by Eddie colonial observers. I mean people like Lady writers. And that, I suppose, is fine. People part of that ecosystem, the “homestead” to I think one of the central figures in poetry hadn’t yet released it. How long did Baugh in Miami in Nugent. I not too sure ‘bout that. But if we share and give in different ways. But yes, not express it, to not write from it. for me has always been WH Auden who this book take you to write? 1993, and Kwame were to do that, Huracan by Diana this has been my father’s influence. So what about inter-island feuds, or the really introduced me to the joy of creation, Dawes’ keynote at McCaulay, for instance, becomes an Allow me to say two words on my mother. price of bread, the crime rate, Shanique the joy of tradition, of form. There is always VL: The book probably in all took the Narrating the important development from that tradition The world I write from, or I attempt to build Myrie, the bloom of the Poui or Glory Cedar, this joy I feel embedded in his craft: about four years. Of course, I didn’t Caribbean Nation of white writers who have not traditionally around my poetry, is very much one given to the smell of rain on a hot road, as Walcott put something about it is playful, and I believe start out writing a book; I was conference some been active participants in Caribbean me by my mother. I mean, a world that is it. I mean a consciousness of the island/s very much in “play” being a serious part of writing poems or trying to “achieve years back. (These society. She is part of a still burgeoning willing to probe myth, spirituality, mystery. I with its finger, like Kaiso, on the pulse of the creating and crafting poetry. It is ultimately a poetry”. But I was, unwittingly, dates don’t suggest tradition of white writers contributing to start off always in that mystical area where place. Not to the exclusion of the diasporic or very serious part of human experience. covering some ground. when the change something that all, both black and white, she comes from: Monchy as cosmos. It ambivalent aspects of experience but in Ritual and all of these fall into, or straddle, happened, but simply could equally call their own. A Literature. should also be said that my sense of duty as addition to these or all muddled up with play. Play mas’. Play Egungun. Man as Homo SM: How would you like to be how I mark it.) Kamau And it is important that this is not done in regards writing comes ironically in large part them. So this prize lets me know that one ludens. Victor Turner’s book title, for defined as a poet? You’ve was talking about the ignorance of the extant issues but in an from my mother. So although my father had can write about these “smaller” experiences instance — The Human Seriousness of Play published with Peepal Tree Press Caribbean and its inherent, embracing of them, and a willingness to that sense of urgency and service that was of Caribbean that are not immediately — captures it perfectly. Poetry is probably (dedicated to publishing submarine unity. He was face their difficulties and doughtiness. affixed to a leftist vision of society, I also connected to the grand narrative of a one of the best examples of that. Martin literature from the Caribbean), talking about the cordillera emerge from that working-class sense of the metropolitan people. And if the kind of natural Carter was an influence very much in terms and you’re described by that and Atlantis, almost physical SM: What do you think the purpose of a importance of Education and well, “English.” allusions one is likely to make, the kind of of my way of thinking about the poet in the house and others as a poet and tangible articles of a faith poet is? What do you think your role is as a (In St Lucian Kwéyòl they say reading and contained world one chooses to inhabit in a society. So I paid a lot more attention to his from St Lucia. The OCM Bocas in the spirit of Caribbean. poet? writing in more or less one word, or one more regulated relationship with the outside content, his philosophy, his activism, his life: Prize positions you, by virtue Kwame, admitting the growth breath: ‘Li-ékwi’) I make reference to this in may elude recognition elsewhere, there is the experience around and the experience of of the award being a prize for of dogged national VL: Purpose for me is a personal t’ing.