Hutchinson
Tanya Batson-Savage, Freelance Writer
JOAN ANDREA Hutchinson is now live and in living black and white with the 'bussing' of her first book Mek Mi Tell Yuh. The anthology of poems and prose was launched at the undercroft of the University of the West Indies, Mona on Tuesday evening.
Several of the pieces in the work have previously been published on CD or audio cassette, such as Dat Bumpy Head Gal, Jamaica Kin Teet and Jamaica Ridim and Ryme.
Ms. Hutchinson has also produced a collection of Anancy stories - Anancy and Aunty Joan, and her most recent work, a collection of proverbs and their meanings - Hamper of Jamaican Proverbs.
THE HOWDY
As the selector of the evening, Professor Carolyn Cooper brought the howdy, which was followed by 'a lickle singing' from the University Singers who added folk music to the night. Pastor Winston Bell added the spiritual element to the night with a musical bless-up. Members of the Jamaica Youth Theatre provided 'a lickle speechifying' with performances of four of Ms. Hutchinson's poems. Ms. Hutchinson delivered four more pieces when it was her time to tell 'how it do and tenky'.
Ms. Hutchinson explained she was driven to write the book six weeks ago, although approximately 70 per cent was produced ten years ago.
"I suffer from not being seen as a writer, only as a performer," she said explaining her motivations. She also said that her earnest writing had been inspired by being away from Jamaica as an attempt to lock in her Jamaican identity. Mek Mi Tell Yuh also provides the author with a way of preserving the stories for the next generation.
"I don't tell people how to live their lives," she says. "I describe what I see about me." As those who provided 'backative' for her work explained, that very action is part of what makes her work valuable, and more importantly that she uses the Jamaican language to do it.
"We are at a point in the development of the language where performance is developing in the minds of Jamaicans that we do have a language," said Professor Hubert Devonish, coordinator of the Jamaican Language Unit, which aims at addressing the Jamaican language situation and creating a standard writing system for Jamaican Creole. Prof. Devonish writes one of two prefaces in the book.
Storyteller Amina Blackwood-Meeks also cited Hutchinson's work as a part of defending the Jamaican identity. She said that Ms. Hutchinson's work provided the nation with 'arsenal' to 'defend weself'.
WEAPONS TO DEFEND WESELF
"Sometimes we forget that we came with weapons to defend weself," Ms. Blackwood-Meeks continued. Her description echoed Louise Bennett's statement that 'we defence is not defenceless'.
As Professor Barry Chevannes, 'di guest speaker' stated, Joan Andrea Hutchinson continues the project of the Honourable Louise Bennett-Coverley who is a clearly celebrated influence on Ms. Hutchinson's work.
"Joan Andrea has put together a wonderful collection of witty poems and prose," he said. While this collection entertains, it also continues in the fight protecting the black Jamaican identity, "because that's what this nonsense about the Jamaican language is all about," he said. Professor Chevannes explained the language in which one thinks, is the language in which one owns oneself.
He argued therefore that the language of war is an important political project. "It is as though we are provided with conditions for admittance into the ranks of humanity," he said. That condition is to speak a language from Europe.
Though it is seated in such an important political project, Ms. Hutchinson's work is made easier by her ability to evoke laughter. "Joan's work is one of the ways in which we are able to live with ourselves," said Sidney Bartley, director of culture.
