By Tanya Batson, Staff Reporter
DESPITE THE rains which greeted the island Sunday morning, The Department of Literatures in English, in association with The Intermedia Foundation presented a successful launch of Professor Edward Baugh's CD, It Was The Singing.
The launch, hosted by Dr. Carolyn Cooper, was held in the theatre at the Phillip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts at the University of the West indies, Mona.
It was a morning of great poetry, interspersed with great music. The music was provided by the duo Touch of Elegance, who played a mixture of folk, popular and gospel music. However, despite how good the music was, it was the poetry that ruled.
When Professor Baugh took to the stage, he pointed out that for years different persons had asked if he would record his poetry but though he had agreed it would be a great idea, he would not be the person to pursue it.
Baugh had been the last to take to the stage, so by the time he got there, Professor Mervyn Morris, the guest speaker, had already said many great things about his poetry, as had the president of Intermedia, Gerd Stern. In response, Baugh noted, "I've heard so many good things about my poems, that I feel I ought to stop and not mess it up."
Fortunately, he did not. Additionally, he did not confine his readings to the works presented on the CD and also read some of the poems from the book of the same name which did not make it to the CD. Poems which were written after the publication of the book also made it to the reading.
One of his newer poems, Rain Poem began the morning. It was a particularly appropriate poem, even if the rain in it was completely metaphoric. Baugh would also note how grateful he was for the turnout, despite the weather. He told the audience, which was by then hanging onto his every word, that when he got up that morning and saw all the 'thunder and rain,' he thought, "Lawd, wash out, wash out."
Of course, Baugh read It Was the Singing. However, he prefaced it with the statement, "I'm going to read It Was the Singing, but I'm going to hope it's for the last time." The audience's enthusiastic response, however, suggested that such a hope lives in vain. Additionally, audiences can now hear him forever reading the beloved poem, now that it is available on CD.
In Professor Morris' address, he had made note of the breadth of topics with which Baugh's poetry deals, which was attested to in the latter's readings. On the theme of love, Baugh read True Love and An Open Letter to Feelings of Insecurity.
His poetry also covered topics of politics and other current, and no longer so current, affairs. He noted that in light of the present season in Jamaica, he would read People Poem: The Leader Speaks. The poem is a wonderfully satiric look at the way rights of citizens are ignored as the politicians, who set themselves up as 'men (and women) of the people' only serve their own desires.
Baugh also read his two-part poems, Amadou's Mother. The first part, Mother Liberty Speaks, deals with the social politics of the United States, which surrounded the slaying of Amadou Diallo, who was slain by police in February of 1999. The poem begins with the very potent words;
Bring me your hungry and your poor,
And I will have them gunned down.
The second part of the poem, Kadiatou Diallo Speaks, is no less powerful as it describes the pain felt by the mother after the tragic slaying of her son. Baugh quite captured the loss she tried to explain to reporters in the words 'They have made a desert of my heart'.
Poetry, was also a topic dealt with in the works read. To the Editor Who Asked Me to Send Him Some of My Black Poems and The Comings and Goings of Poems made up this category. Baugh also read Freeze Warning, Walking to Jerusalem, and Flip Side.
His readings attested to what Professor Morris had earlier said, using poet Ralph Thompson's words, "A Baugh poem poised on the page is one thing," but a Baugh poem read by Baugh is "a unique experience". As a result he encouraged, "Listen to the CD; read the book."
