And what is praise but the offering up of one’s self, the daily rituals: waking to the stream of light seeping in under the bedroom door, dressing slowly, humming Marley’s ‘Three Little Birds’ or a made up melody, cursing the traffic and the heat – the unbearable brazenness of the morning sun – punctuating your profanities with pleas for forgiveness. When you were a child your mother threatened to wash your mouth with soap. You have not forgotten how a mouth can sully everything, its desire to be perfect and how often it fails. At work you smile with the girl who asks stupid questions, you imagine she has unpaid bills, a wayward child, you imagine you are more alike than different. You cut your nails at your desk, laugh when someone falls, eat lunch too quickly, take Tums for the indigestion. In the evening you drink peppermint tea, watch TV and when your eyes grow heavy you say a quick word of prayer, a thank you for another full day, a request that you not be killed in your sleep. Perhaps, you squeeze in an orgasm. And if this is not praise, this simple act of living, if this is not enough, then let us lie here and do nothing and see what God has to say about that.
We present this work in honor of the Jamaican holiday, Emancipation Day.
Una Marson Jamaican 1905 – 1965
Each race that breathes the air of God’s fair world Is so bound up within its little self, So jealous for material wealth and power That it forgets to look outside itself Save when there is some prospect of rich gain; Forgetful yet that each and every race Is brother unto his, and in the heart Of every human being excepting none, There lies the selfsame love, the selfsame fear, The selfsame craving for the best that is, False pride and petty prejudice prevail Where love and brotherhood should have full sway.
When shall this cease? ‘Tis God alone who knows; But we who see through this hypocrisy And feel the blood of black and white alike Course through our veins as our strong heritage Must range ourselves to build the younger race. What matter that we be as cagéd birds Who beat their breasts against the iron bars Till blood-drops fall, and in heartbreaking songs Our souls pass out to God? These very words, In anguish sung, will mightily prevail. We will not be among the happy heirs Of this grand heritage – but unto us Will come their gratitude and praise, And children yet unborn will reap in joy What we have sown in tears.
For there will come A time when all the races of the earth, Grown weary of the inner urge for gain, Grown sick of all the fatness of themselves And all their boasted prejudice and pride, Will see this vision that now comes to me. Aye, there will come a time when every man Will feel that other men are brethren unto him— When men will look into each other’s hearts And souls, and not upon their skin and brain, And difference in the customs of the race. Though I should live a hundred years, I should not see this time, but while I live, ‘Tis mine to share in this gigantic task Of oneness for the world’s humanity.
When I walked down the road, I’d hear Aunt Sue’s voice, “How you doing, dear heart?” Or “There goes me sunshine girl!” Uncle Joe would call from his cart.
Here in the big city, thousands pass me by. No sweet voices like rain sprinkle me with care. No one knows or calls my name.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 100th birthday.
Gloria Escoffery Jamaican 1923 – 2002
Mother Jackson sees the moon coming at her and slams the door of her shack so hard the tin louvres shudder with eagerness to let the moon in. If she should cry for help the dog would skin its teeth at her, the cat would hoist its tail and pin the whole moonlit sky to the gutter. The neighbours would maybe douse her in chicken blood and hang her skin out to dry on the packy tree. Mother Jackson swallows her bile and sprinkles oil from the kitchen bitch on her ragged mattress. Then she lights a firestick and waits for the moon to take her.
We present this work in honor of the 25th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Vivian Virtue Jamaican 1911 – 1998
Like uncombed urchin suns they blaze along The public border of this autumn garden; Their sallow, bronze and golden faces harden Against the coming frost, as keen gusts throng The dusk, scattering the frail evensong Of some late robin. Sidling the dew comes Upon them—grave-gay last chrysanthemums— As, at a parting, tears betray the strong.
Why does he linger so intently gazing Upon them, this last straggler in the park— Has he not heard the keeper’s closing bell? I wish I had not seen his sere hand raising In an intolerable gesture of farewell,
We present this work in honor of the Jamaican holiday, National Heroes’ Day.
Roger Mais Jamaican 1905 – 1955
Men of ideas outlive their times An idea held by such a man does not end with his death His life bleeding away goes down Into the earth, and they grow like seed The idea that is not lost with the waste of a single life Like seed springing up a multitude.
They hanged Gordon from a boom Rigged in front of the Court House They hanged him with eighteen others for company And Jesus had but two But the ideas for which Gordon lived Did not hang with him And the great social revolution for which Jesus died Did not die with him Two men they nailed with Jesus side by side Eighteen went to hang with Gordon from the new-rigged boom But the idea of equality and justice with Gordon Went into the ground and sprung up like seed, a multitude
A hundred years the seed was a-growing in the ground A hundred years is not too long A hundred years is not too soon A hundred years is a time and a season And all things must wait a time and a season And the time and the season for each growing thing
Is the way, and there is no other
The time and the season of its growing and bearing fruit
Are inherent in the nature of the seed And inherent in it is its growth and its fruit
And this is the way and there is no other
A hundred years is not too long
For the seed to burst its husk under the ground
And cleave a path and press upward
And thrust a green blade in triumph at the sun Do not be anxious for the house that is a-building For the unsown acres under the plough For all things await a time and a season.
The dream given to one man in the night
Not night nor darkness can call it back again
They hanged George William Gordon for the dream
He had been given in the night That he carried in his breast Thinking to put the dream to death With the man they put to shameful death But they give immortality to the dream That time the man is put to death For the dream is all It is all of a man that there is and immortal And all of immortality of a man there is.
A long time ago they hanged George William Gordon But not so long ago A log time ago They put Jesus on the Cross But not so long For all things have a time and a season A long time ago The pea doves took the sweetwood seeds And let them fall on the valley bottoms That are now the virgin forest of the great backlands Of new timber, a long time Were the bare rock-spure growing That is now a matted forest floor Where the wild birds took and dropped The little sweet kernels of the tall timbers A long time ago, but not so long For all things have a time and a season And a hundred years is not too long And a hundred years is not too soon. They hanged Gordon with eighteen others They nailed Jesus between two thieves But the ideas these men lived for did not die with them A single grain of corn will yield an ear of corn And an ear of corn in two generations will sow a field And these things befall between a moon and a moon All things await a time and a season And twice a hundred years is not too long Or twice a hundred years too soon.
Poets Corner 