- CONTRIBUTED
Olive Senior accepts the 2003 'Norman Washington Manley Award for Excellence' from Dr. Douglas Manley, son of the late national hero in whose honour the award is named. The occasion was the awards ceremony at the Ward Theatre, downtown Kingston. Ms. Senior was recognised for her distinguished contributions to Jamaican literature.
Tanya Batson-Savage, Freelance Writer
OLIVE SENIOR, hosted by the Department of Literatures in English at the University of the West Indies, Mona, provided a reading that combined her poetry and prose from old, new and yet-to-be-published works. The reading took place last Wednesday evening in the multi-function room of the main library at the university.
Velma Pollard delivered the introduction and pointed to Senior's various roles as poet, playwright, editor and, most recently, the compiler of the Encyclopaedia of Jamaican Heritage. The question and answer segment, which followed the reading, allowed for Senior to create, through her own work, a sense of her views about writing.
NO SEPARATION
"I'm still only interested in writing about the Caribbean," she said. She revealed that she has no mission in writing other than to 'engage' her audience and express her material honestly. Senior also explained that she does not separate prose and poetry into terms of 'easier' or 'harder', as she may find that a 10-line poem takes the same effort as a 5,000-word story.
"The hardest thing is for me to find my way to the subject matter," she said.
"There's no place like home to read and be," said Senior. She began with 'Brief Lives' from Gardening in the Tropics. Senior laughingly commented that the poem, which deals with the increase of funeral fashions, as proof that she is "really on the ball". She then turned to her most recently published collection of poetry, Over the Roofs of the World, with the poem 'Leaving Home'.
Her first turn at prose for the night, The Pain Tree, a short story from an unpublished collection, then followed. Senior returned to poetry with 'Join the Dots', from a collection called Shell that she is currently working on. Later, she would reveal that the poem is her current favourite. "My favourite is always the last thing I've written," she said. "So, this poem, 'Join the Dots', is currently my favourite, because it's the last poem I've written."
She then returned to Over the Roofs of the World, from which she read the poem 'Penny Reeling'. As she explained, a penny reel is a chance to dance around the maypole at a penny per reel. The poem, the tale of an abused dressmaker, combines beautifully the images of the carefree interweaving ribbons of the maypole, the weaving (sewing) of threads to make a living and the threads of pain that weaves the dressmaker's life.
NOVEL
Senior ended her reading with an excerpt from a novel she is working on which "doesn't have a real name yet". The story, told by an intriguing old woman, brought a lighter feel to the evening, though her reading hints at a more poignant story to be unfolded. Senior explained that the story is told in "fragmentary bits" based on the narrator's journal.
During the question and answer segment, Senior declared that she believed that creating boredom is "the worst crime on earth". She explained that though she does not want to simply provide bedtime fodder to be easily forgotten, it is important to her that she entertains her readers. The enthusiastic response of the audience in the room boldly declared that her mission was accomplished.
