By Tanya Batson, Staff ReporterDENISE Shervington, the author of Three Women which was launched by Silver Lion Press at the beginning of this year, lead a reading and discussion at the Neville Hall Lecture Theatre, last Friday night at the University of the West Indies. The discussion's title was 'Creative Writing As a Form of Spirituality'.
Shervington is a practising psychiatrist and is also employed to the Louisiana State University Medical Centre. Three Women is her first fictional work. Although the evening was cut short by a power outage, it was an interesting one.
She explained her desire to heal with words. From early in her presentation, Shervington told the audience that while she did not believe herself to be a writer, she desires to be a healer and believes in the healing power of words.
Her readings, taken from her work and others, all dealt with emotionally scarred women, all suffering from maternal abandonment. This was particularly relevant since before opening the floor to discussion she informed the audience that healing must begin with connecting with our mothers. Interestingly, all the major characters in Three Women suffer from one form or other of maternal abandonment.
Shervington interspersed her readings with insights from her work as a psychiatrist as well as her own life. She noted that her talks with Jamaican psychiatrists have revealed that many Jamaican children, those who parents have migrated to seek a better life (so they become 'barrel pickney') suffer from this.
From her personal life, Shervington pointed out that she had feelings of maternal abandonment (for which she has received therapy) and also constantly worries about if she is a good mother.
Before delving into the fictional works, Shervington began by attempting to define the self. She pointed out that the answer is one we attempt to attain from a very early age. She stated that while we first realise that the self includes the body, the spirit is also a very important part.
Shervington further remarked that the spirit (or the unconscious) must be brought to life in order for complete healing to be effected. Writing can be used to effect this awakening. "It is my firm belief that the writer is using her words as tools for chipping away at the miseries of life," she said.
She began her readings with an extract from Alice Walker's The Way Forward is With a Broken Heart. This was followed by an extract of Jamaica Kincaid's Autobiography of My Mother. Three readings from her own fictional work then followed. The audience was introduced to the tales of woe of the heroines of Three Women, Thalia, Ann and Sarah.
Thalia lost her mother through a violent suicide, Ann's Jamaican mother migrated to seek work, leaving her with a relative; and Sarah was mothered by a depressed, dissatisfied woman who ignored the sexual abuse the young girl received at her father's hands. Shervington used Sarah's tale as a launching pad to point out that children who are sexually abused suffer the worst form of parental abandonment as they cannot understand why their mothers did not protect them.
This discussion was taken up when the floor was opened. Although this did not last long, due to the lack of electricity, it led Shervington to point out that Jamaican women were not in general supportive of each other. She stated that Three Women is intended to point to a different approach, as together women can help to heal each other.
