Throwback review – meaning a review that I blogged way back in my My Space days and am now relocating here.
Calabash A Journal of Caribbean Arts and Letters Volume 4 No 2 Spring – Summer 2007 – Finding this online was Monday’s nice surprise, having waited a while for the posting of poems of mine which had been selected for the issue. I was equally thrilled to discover lots of interesting reading in its ‘pages’. The Calabash journal features Caribbean arts – writing and visual art. Usually these aren’t solely from the English speaking Caribbean, but this was a special issue; one that I enjoyed reading cover to cover, so to speak. Particularly engaging reads included:
Jacqueline Bishop and Dolace Mclean’s lively (Re) Rooted: An Interview with Caryl Philips. (Earlier in the year, I saw him read at Jamaica’s Calabash Literary Festival about his journey – boy to writer – in which he lamented how much he hates talking about himself and his craft. “I love fiction because I can hide,” he said. I can totally relate; but as was the case at Calabash it’s thoroughly interesting whenever he does come out of hiding).
Diego Luna’s The Awakening and Neil T. Greenidge’s An Accepted Child, the only works of fiction included, both of which impacted with a weird combination of wonder and sadness.
Also a number of the poets were memorable; especially Tregenza Rose (What to Tell A Child About Surrender), Ian McDonald (Speaking to the Gods), Mervyn Morris (A Daughter’s Recollection & Painter), Edgar O. Lake (Walter Reads to Brodsky’s God-Mother), Althea Romeo Mark (Revolution and Reggae), Ralph Thompson (Seasons), Paula Obé (Late Night Rhapsody), and Delores Gauntlett (DoctorBird). I especially enjoyed DoctorBird.
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