Tanya Batson-Savage, Freelance Writer
Lorna Goodison. - WINSTON SILL/FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER
POETRY FROM Lorna Goodison's latest collection, Controlling the Silver, filled the theatre at the Phillip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts on Sunday morning. The poems created a walk through Jamaica's past with several of the characters borrowed from her youth.
Goodison's pen slips between the folk and the modern with enviable ease, making a space for its own language. But even though it rests easily in both spaces, it is clear that it fits most easily in the realm of the folk as the poems presented a guide through the twists and turns of Jamaican culture.
Her poems included Ode to the Watchman which brought to life the usually shadowy image of the watchman, almost universally dubbed 'Watchy', removing him from the role of watcher to the subject of our eyes.
JOURNEY INTO THE PAST
The journey into Jamaica's past continued with two beautiful pieces with long ungainly names: Recalling the14 Hour Drive from Kingston to Lucea in 1953 followed by The Wandering Jew, the Arab Merchant and the Island of All Spice. The latter brought an interesting look at the mixture of cultures in Jamaica brought together through commerce. A later piece, Where the Floor of Our Village Comes From, also delivered a take on Jamaica's multiple ethnicities using the blend of flora as its base.
She also delivered pieces that dealt with food, delving into the edible items that have enhanced the Jamaican culture. The poems often acted as one of the ties that bind the cultural fabric, among them Hard Food and the light piece Breadfruit Thoughts.
Around another bend was poetry with characters taken from one of her school-day texts, The Royal Primer. She delivered three poems, one of which was dedicated to Velma Pollard, which took on feminist and post-colonial readings of the characters from the days of colonisation. Explaining that the characters were never doing anything in the text, they just lived either in the Congo, Egypt or Antarctica, she helped to fill in their lives.
So Herfa of Egypt, who had been drawn sitting below a camel, was allowed to embody the power and majesty of a Sphnix while Tuktu the Inuit was then able to become a cinematographer. Unfortunately, the young boy from the Congo, Bombo, lost his hands under the rule of King Leopold.
PERSONAL TALES
As the end of her reading neared, Goodison turned to more personal tales delivering two elegies, Aunt Ann and Rites, the first to a beloved aunt and the second to her cousin. She then attempted to close the section with the praise song and title poem Controlling the Silver which she explained was dedicated to "the guinea woman, my great grandmother and other women like her."
However, Professor Edward Baugh, who played the morning's host, invited her back for a serving of dessert. For that, she proffered up The Wisdom of My Cousin Fool-Fool Rose, a poem which deals with the title character from Goodison's recent collection of short stories, Fool-Fool Rose is Leaving Labour in Vain Savannah.
The reading is the first in a series of events to take place at the Centre for the 2005 semester. Brian Heap announced that Sunday morning readings would return to the centre with War and The Character Who Walked Out on his Author next Sunday morning. Additionally, October becomes Second Chances Month with restaging of the productions The Wiz, The Black That I Am, Matters Arising, Positive and the University Singer's 2005 Season.
