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 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 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 or poets like 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 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. I my poem “Medium” in SG. There was a recognition right here at home. his poetry. Now this is a question that I Caribbean literature, as a consciousness, spoke of the would be tempted to ask, my role to premium placed on those prized assets of revisit all the time. Of late, I am even Caribbean writer. Do you Caribbean nation as having to be whom? Or in what? I think one principle I my society and the possibilities that it SM: As you know, I reviewed Sounding realising how much Portrait of the Artist as a find regional and national seen as an invented one, but a believe in is responsibility. I believe that the afforded one and that these possibilities Ground for the Jamaica Observer’s arts Young Man, which I’ve read a zillion times, descriptors useful in your useful one, not only a conceptual way the Caribbean is represented and must be met with a sense of duty to create magazine Bookends, not long ago and gave was such an important book for me, identification as a poet? space but also a common mythic spoken about needs to be taken very better circumstances for those whom you

the book a rave review, describing you as a especially as one who started writing Do you like them? What root for these now national seriously. Whether it’s a person, the history, love. One’s people. So certainly, in meeting M

“significant poet” who has entered the seriously at university. Kamau Brathwaite, is the worth in placing traditions. Now, we know this well the landscape, we have to approach this Auden’s pessimistic proclamation that a y 5 public domain of poetry with “full grace”. I both in his criticism and poetry, is a major poets within regional enough — about a nation being an with great care, not apologism, but care. “poetry makes nothing happen”, I just could

1 idea that is permitted reality by our Our history is a history of being misquoted, not relate. My sense of words and language 1 0 also suggested you were a “metaphysical influence. He got me to appreciate and national 0 2

poet” whose work cannot be placed within Caribbean cosmologies and ontology in a categories? Or are agreeing to shut up about it being, misunderstood, mistaken for something having true transformative power was too ,

, an easy camp. That is, I suggested you serious way. There are too many influences such parameters really, an idea. People have to believe other than what we were. We cannot, in strong. 2 0 0

1 di ting re-al! So that awareness of this day and age, in any small way, be

were neither a strict “Walcottian” nor to talk about, some who are not poets at all. destructive? Would 1

5 y “Brathwaitian” disciple (and, perhaps, I But other poets I love or am excited by: you rather be known, “mythic root,” that awareness of the contributing to that tradition of lies and SM: A number of your poems are either a should mention Goodison here, too) but that Lorca, Neruda, Césaire, Nikki Finney, Kwame perhaps, as a poet usefulness of myth, is post-religious. It intellectual indolence that has plagued the dedicated to or pay homage to writers and

T M

Dawes, Cornelius Eady, Christian Campbell, of the world? is when something formerly believed Caribbean. And we have to read each intellectuals: William Blake, Aimé Césaire, H E R Patricia Smith… the list goes on and on. I in/real, eroded by scepticism, is other’s works with similar care and rigour. Walter Rodney, Ovid, Vahni Capildeo, Rawle S E U V BOOKENDS CREDITS am reading a book now by Somali-American VL: I don’t feel reclaimed as heritage, has a sort of One reviewer of my book referred to Gibbons, and Sounding Ground itself begins N R E writer Ladan Osman and am enjoying it. I them to be second life. Nothing wrong with that. Tjenbwa/Obeah — about which I wrote a with an epigraph from CLR. James. Can you D

S • Bookends A B

recently read Louise Glück’s Forward Prize destructive. At Nothing unnatural. suite of poems — as Voudou, even though talk a bit about these people (or some of Y O

Co-ordinator

it was glossed right there in the notes to them) and how/why they have had an O Y shortlisted Faithful and Virtuous Night, which least, not to me. Sharon Leach B A is a remarkable collection! I am a poet. We’re also a generation obsessed with the back of the book! We have to come influence on you? S D • Writer E N That means ‘Posts’: Post-colonial, post-racial, post-post better than that or we unwittingly join the R V U Stephanie McKenzie E S colonial. Persons are really trying to define ranks of Anthony Trollope, Charles Kingsley, VL: Well, in looking at the very names SM: What do you think you were trying something R E • Art Director what they are doing that may be new or Froude, Stedman and, in St Lucia, Father yuh call there, I can already see a pattern. H to say overall in Sounding Ground? What is and links me

T Rorie Atkinson

w different from the generation before. The Charles Jesse in defaming and denigrating They are thinkers who, in some form or

this book about? Or are these bad up with

• Layout w m questions? people who also work problem with this way of marking periods is people, their stories, what they are trying to fashion, experience(d) the world in ways w o

c Stephen Morrison . . that I do. Much of my life has been spent

that it superannuates prematurely what say for themselves in the world. j r with words and language in that way. I a e Bookends contact m v VL: I am less sure about making a am from the Caribbean and, yes, most came before. It helps us pretend that the and will be spent in trying to reconcile my r absolutely a e

information: i c s statement, or trying to say something, as certainly St Lucian. Those are the colours of necessary to be a poet questions we choose not to deal with SM: You dedicate this book to your social consciousness with a spiritual root a b

Mail: Bookends o o opposed to do-ing something. SG was a my experience and how I engage the world. anymore, that we feel were either father, saying that Sounding Ground is a like the way people like Boukman, Sam

with a texture, a taste, a feel. As a b a s c c/o The Jamaica Observer Ltd i Sharpe and others succeeded in doing. I libation first and foremost, and, within that I don’t think that locks me into a faction or poet, I believe in the necessity of limits and contended with or borne by earlier continuation of his work. Can you talk about e a verse? r 40-42 1/2 Beechwood Ave, Kgn 5 remember going to James’ grave with v m generations on our behalf, have somehow the influence your father had, and has, on moment of praise and respect, an limits the concerns I am allowed to have. I the deep-and-wide and limitless worlds e a r j . . E-mail: interrogation, as the epigraph from James would suggest that really being a poet of they eventually lead one to. gone away. They haven’t. As in society, as your poetry? Rawle Gibbons in Tunapuna and seeing the c o w VL: There has been a lot of [email protected] in literature. We have not answered these remains of a candle on his grave and Rawle m w suggests, as water does when it starts to the world requires provinciality, which is SM: SM: How do you think the newer growth and change, which I think we may w