DUB POETRY may have made another step toward further engraving itself in the canon of English Literature, or at least literatures in English when Cherry Natural launched her book Earth Woman: Selected Poems 1989 - 2001 on Wednesday.
The launch took place at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, New Kingston.
Nabby Natural, who played host for the evening attempted to set the importance of the poet. "News hardly reflects the useful things that happen daily," he said. "It becomes the work of the poet, the lyricist, to report the finer, or the refined things in life."
The other speakers of the evening sought to bring out the wider significance of not only poetry but the publication of a collection from a dub poet. Mutabaruka, one of the leading figures in dub poetry said, "Is really a feat fi really ave a poetry book. Cause it nuh ave no commercial value if people nuh know yuh cause nobady naa go eena di book store and ask, 'Yuh ave any new poet?'." He therefore urged that everyone present at the launch buy a copy.
LEGITIMISING THE ART FORM
Mutabaruka went on to illustrate that having the poetry on the printed page was a way of legitimising the art form. "This now is where the literary artistic form become sophisticated," he said holding up a copy of the book for all to see. He noted that scholars tended to only respect words that lie on the printed page. "Dem nuh respec dub poetry, dem respec literary art form," he said.
To further highlight his point, Mutabaruka made reference to Linton Kwesi Johnson's Mi Revalushanary Fren being published as a part of the Penguin Classics. This feat seats Johnson firmly in the canon of British Literature. "Dat mean seh likkle more your pickney dem wi ave fi study Linton and vex, and don't know that he's a Jamaican," Mutabaruka told the audience.
The evening's guest speaker, Dr. Glenda Simms, Executive Director of the Bureau of Women's Affairs made comments in a similar vein. She noted that works like Cherry Natural's are needed to break into the canon of 'dead white men' that is English Literature. "I'm hoping that this book is a part of the literature that our children are exposed to when they go to school," she said.
AUTHENTIC VOICE
"We welcome this book because women's stories are rarely told," Simms continued. She noted that Cherry Natural was able to capture the strengths, weaknesses and contradictions of Jamaica in a very authentic voice. "We must always be a first-rate version of ourselves rather than a second rate version of somebody else," she further argued, noting that Earth Woman advocated this.
Indeed, the first poem that Cherry Natural, and her daughter Little Natural performed spoke to that. The poem, 'Be Yu' begins with the damning words, "dem give yuh a costume which is not your size/ an yuh punish yuself to fit into it." As is with the slant of Cherry Natural's poetry, however, 'Be Yu' has a motivational slant. So it urges the confused maddened woman to throw off other people's interpretation of what she should be and consider herself a worthwhile member of humanity.
Cherry Natural and Little Natural performed several of the pieces from Earth Woman which demonstrated the depth of its literary and motivational scope. She was also aided by M'Bala, who performed Natural's 'I'm Walking Out of Your Jailhouse Tonight' along with his own work, 'Silent Heroes'.
Several of the pieces Cherry Natural performed dealt with the nature and value of poetry. It is interesting that though the work is now firmly encased in a book, Cherry Natural advocates that poetry remain active living things, freed from a dusty life on a book shelf.
In 'Sen di Poem Come' she asks, A weh it do, mek unu lock it up eena book.
Dust and cobweb a feed dem lust.
Meanwhile poems a cohabitate
Di poet a masturbate
Sen di poem come, work to be done.
Now safely installed between the pages of a book her words can attempt to dub themselves into the literary canon and do their work, even without her voice to send them forward.
