Left to right, the author of the recently published book of poetry, 'It was the singing', Professor Edward Baugh, Barbara Ellington, Dr. Carolyn Cooper, Dr. Norval Edwards, and Professor Mervyn Morris, enjoy a reading of one of the poems.
Barbara Ellington, Features Co-ordinator
THE quiet serenity of the residence of Dr. Carolyn Cooper at the University of the West Indies, Mona, was the venue for last week Sunday's meeting of The Sunday Gleaner Reading Club. Fittingly so, because the book that took the spotlight was Professor Edward Baugh's latest volume of poetry, It was the Singing.
Professor Baugh who joined the discussion is a professor of English and the orator at the UWI. He has also written A Tale From The Rainforest.
Some of the poems in the book have previously been included in other publications both locally and overseas.
Also participating in the discussion were host Dr. Carolyn Cooper, Professor Mervyn Morris and Dr. Norval Edwards, lecturer in graduate and undergraduate literature.
The lively session was informative and insightful as Professor Baugh set many of the poems in context explaining how and why they came about. He read some in his excellent and soothing oratorical style and the group also got a chance to hear the CD of 40 poems by the author, that will be launched today at the Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts at the UWI at 11 a.m.
Professor Morris sees It Was The Singing as an important new book of Jamaican poetry "with a wide range of themes".
I like his dramatic monologue skill as evidenced in "Carpenter's Complaint", "Niger Sweat" and "Old Talk". The latter makes it more and more obvious to me that Baugh is trying to bring back some of the "old time talk," Professor Morris said.
He cites the author's use of real names in his work and sees this as a celebration of people through verse. The celebration continues through For Simon Cole, page 80. "Sometimes the poem is inspired by a work of art that seems to hit him (Baugh) viscerally," Professor Morris said.
Professor Baugh described the incident: It was a morning when the National Gallery featured the late Edna Manley and asked him to speak about her. Out of the discussion of a carving she was working on and through the eyes of one who saw her as well as the music being played at the time, came the poem Journey which Professor Morris describes as one that he likes.
Though the collection is slim (99 pages), Professor Morris said the range registers with the reader. "It's immense, the work defies the spurious distinction made between public poems versus singing."
It touches social issues, for example, on page 26, You Ever Notice How, in which the politician appears out of place and out of step with the people. Sometimes, In The Middle of a Story page 96, is a wonderful elegy of the history of the middle passage. Professor Baugh's work operates in terms of remembering important events.
In Small Town Story, he remembers family. Truth and Consequences on page 55, recognises that writers have to take responsibility for what they say. The poems also demonstrate the poet's wry sense of humour.
Dr. Edwards said that in the process of composition some poets hear or see the verse and both of these senses came alive in View from the George Headley Stand on page 32 in which the reader gets a word picture of all the things you hear at a cricket match.
Professor Baugh said that he recalls Richie Richardson's way of playing that made you wonder if the stroke was indigenous. He describes the title as ironic and explains that he "hears" his poems.
"I cannot write a poem until I suddenly hear the right voice as in "Niger Sweat". I carry them in my head for a long time before releasing them. Sometimes they haunt me. Nowadays I write down the new lines as they come.
For Dr. Edwards, It Was the Singing is a significant and welcome contribution to Caribbean poetry. Professor Baugh is a meticulous craftsman whose elegant poems register a reverence for both the craft of poetry and the art of life.
The book showcases his mastery of a wide range of moods, forms and voices particularly in the dramatic monologues such as the title poem It was the Singing. The dramatic monologues reveal a skilful synthesis of speaking voice and written word, Jamaican Creole and Standard English, and all the modulations in between.
These poems beg to be read aloud, to be performed and they are object lessons in how to weave the cadences of the voice, breath, pause and rhythm, into a poetic syntax that pulls readers into the private musings, shared reflections, public rants, conversations and incessant storytelling that transform these poems into an ongoing series of conversations.
Like all good poets, Professor Baugh uses language to sculpt ordinary experiences into visionary moments. His visions are not characterised by strident prophecy; his preference is for the quiet yet often unsettling insight, the pinprick of light which forces us to see the world and ourselves in a new way.
For Dr. Carolyn Cooper, the focus of the poems is not just on the content but the most striking aspect is hearing the author read them. "The power of his voice to embody the meaning takes them to another level thus making good poetry better. He enhances the words. For example Warrior Women on page 74, evokes such power that you get a sense of the rural parts. She explained that the 'warner' women of yesteryear, are no longer popular and perhaps the musicians of today are carrying their voice.
Dr. Cooper noted the latent romantic reverence of nature in the poems and Professor Baugh confessed, "I am an incurable romantic, though part of my challenge is to resist it."
She noted also the themes of past and present pulled in one moment, though the poet is not wallowing in the past.
She wanted to know if there was any poem that the poet had ever rejected and why. Professor Baugh obliged recalling one that came from an incident that could have proved insensitive to one of its subjects, hence his decision not to publish it.
Professor Baugh wrote his first poem Sunset at the age of 14 when he was in fourth form at Titchfield High School in Portland. Rural life in Portland has influenced many of his poems. He explores themes such as: childhood, family, love, politics, death, friendship and celebration.
His poem, For Derek Walcott on page 48, is not necessarily restricted to the Nobel laureate. It was triggered when he saw Walcott's play 'Odyssey' at the Barbican Theatre in London.
Professor Baugh also revealed that Where The President Lives on page 24, is based on a Latin America leader who appears and speaks to a crowd. It was triggered by a visit to Cuba during which he was taken around by someone of whom he enquired where was the president's house and was told no one knows.
