Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer
M'Bala, who ended the anniversary celebration with 'The Bookburning'. - WINSTON SILL/FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER
IT WAS a homecoming in more ways than one for Evelyn Nathan on Tuesday night, as she launched Train to Skaville at the Poetry Society of Jamaica's monthly meeting.
Not only was Nathan back in the country that she lived in from 1969 to the late 1970s, but the amphitheatre at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts where the meeting was held is close to the School of Art. And it was at that school, though at a different venue, that she taught
photography 37 years ago.
MIXTURE OF WORDS, IMAGES
In fact, Train to Skaville is a mixture of words and images, as the poetry is interspersed with photographs taken by Nathan and Robin Lai.
It was also a celebration of the Poetry Society's 17th anniversary, for which a reading of 'Other People's Poetry' was introduced to complement the regular open mic contributions.
"I love Jamaica. It holds mixed images for me," Nathan said. And before she started the reading, she cautioned, "I don't do performance poetry and I am not angry," to chuckles from the audience.
"I lived on Skyline Drive when we lived in Jamaica," she said, starting with Cane Fires which recalled how "labourers on Skyline/call in plainsong syllables/and walk with cutlasses into the bush."
POEMS AND READING
Moving easily between poems and reading at a relaxed pace, Nathan continued with Beatrice, Epiphany and Pilgrim, saying that the last was "about the day I left Jamaica. One of the saddest days of my life. I cried all the way home".
Nathan asked pardon for her patois before beginning Palisadoes and there were a few chuckles as her American accent and Jamaican language collided "where colour hit an juk me/t'ru de 'art". The title poem continued the journey from the then Palisadoes airport to "the crooked alleyways/the shade that plays/upon the palm like piano keys."
Nathan touched on familiar places (Constant Spring) and things (The Blessed Lime) before swinging to her New England home and recollections of Jamaica with Frost Palms ("Condensation on my window/spun the leaves of frost/to palms this morning") and Principal Points of Interest ("...half-forgotten zig-zag lines/unfolding like a documentary/in black and white...").
CONCLUSION
Nathan concluded with The Trinity, Windward Side and Swimming in Black River, one of her favourites in the book.
Poetry Society of Jamaica president, Tommy Ricketts, started the reading of other people's poems with lyrics from a Pink Floyd song On The Turning Away, while Malachi Smith did Oku Onura's Reflections In Red. And M'Bala finished the evening with BertoldtBrecht's The Bookburning, which demanded of the authorities which had skipped his writing in their burning to "burn me, have I not always spoken the truth?"
