Baugh Title: It Was the Singing (CD)
Author: Edward Baugh
Reviewed by: Michael Reckord
EDWARD BAUGH was one of my teachers at Kingston College. This was long ago and he wasn't Professor Emeritus of English at the University of the West Indies then, not even an ordinary professor, not even Dr. Baugh (Ph.D., English, University of Manchester).
But he was a writer of poetry. It wasn't easy, I remember him telling me during one English class, to write poetry after teaching English all day.
He was also an excellent actor, and I remember telling him that I enjoyed his portrayal of Claudius every bit as much as I enjoyed Reggie Carter's title role in Hamlet which was staged during the period at Little Theatre.
Sometime after he joined the faculty of the UWI, Baugh became public orator. This, no doubt, because of his excellent natural voice, his actor's ability to use it well and his masterful use of the English language.
All this is relevant to this review of Baugh's poetry collection which was recently produced as a CD by Gerd Stern and Winston Stona. (It was first published as a book by Sandberry Press).
LISTENING DELIGHT
The CD gives us a chance to hear Baugh reading the poems of the collection.
The listening gives delight. Unfortunately, it is not unalloyed delight. Baugh's voice is rich, flexible; his reading dramatic and, of course, full of understanding. Those who shy away from poetry because they find it difficult will be assisted by Baugh's reading.
So what's the problem? It's the production. Forty-two poems are crammed onto this compact disc, and because these are not the minimalist, short-short pieces favoured by some poets, the total amounts to a whole lot of words.
They never stop coming at you. You have no space to breathe, to consider the implications of what you've just heard, to experience the ripples.
Not only is there no space between the poems; there is no music, no sound effects, which would have given added pleasure. A good quality product deserves good packaging.
The poems in the 80-poem printed collection have been selected and rearranged for the CD. Thirty-eight have been dropped and the others ordered to give a feeling of chronology.
Early poems, like Responsibility, A Rain-Washed Town by the Sea and Sunday Afternoon Walks with My Father are about the author's childhood in Port Antonio. The middle works reflect adult thoughts those of the author or of the poems' personas and the final poems are about endings.
A Way of Going, Journey and the title poem, It Was the Singing, are the last three poems.
In the first, we hear of a man who, as he journeys through life, continually sheds his "impediments," until, "Free of desires and regrets and ideologies," he disappears into the night.
The second poem is full of images of death (but a triumphant death into the arms of a loving Lord), and the last poems shows a woman who says her soul will rest in peace if only her friends will sing her favourite hymn, How Great Thou Art, at her funeral.
LIVE READING
Baugh introduces a few of the poems, giving them a context before he starts to read them. This gives the listener a feel of a live reading by the poet, and provides that little extra which readers of the book will lack. For those reasons, and because they also space the poems out a bit, more of the introductions would have been useful.
Accompanying the CD is a brief essay by fellow poet, Ralph Thompson. The equivalent of a music CD's liner notes, or the preface of a book, it is an insightful guide to the poems.
Producer: Intermedia Foundation
