The black figure has always been a subject of entertainment in popular culture, as well as an image to sell things. In some ways, that’s how people relate to us—because they’ve seen us on television.
—
Derrick Adams
One a Week With Water by Shake Keane
- Brooke Alfaro by Mónica Kupfer
- Stanley Greaves by Anne Walmsley
- Santiago Sierra by Teresa Margolles
- Erna Brodber by Keshia Abraham
- Jorge Volpi by Martin Solares
- Jesús Tenreiro-Degwitz by Carlos Brillembourg
- Nilo Cruz by Emily Mann
- Michael “Ibo” Cooper by Kwame Dawes
- Judy Mowatt by Kwame Dawes
Interviews
- Loving Che by Ana Menéndez
- Four Poems by Kwame Dawes
- Falling Sky by Cristina García
- Five Poems by Raúl Gómez Jattin
- Was Me Mudda by Oonya Kempadoo
- Passing Through by Colin Channer
- Two Poems by José Lezama Lima
- Cold Havana Ground by Arnaldo Correa
- One a Week With Water by Shake Keane
First Proof
WEEK FOUR 19-347
Kaiso Calypso
Mauby Maw-beer
‘Nanse ‘tory
Nonsense Story
NONSENSE
NONSENSE
In 1313 first recorded Africans arrived in the New World, from Mali.
We, the members of CANGASOBOGGA (Can Garden Suburban Cognizance Assn.), cognizant of our duty to be remarkable, and resolved to be so cognizant, demand to know why we were not informed in time.
WEEK FIVE 26-310
BRUNG-SKIN GYURL
I GORN
KYANT STOP
GOTTA HOP
GONNA SHARPEN MY KNIFE
GONNA COLLA A DOLLA
GONNA LIVE A COLORFUL LIFE
COLOR BY TECHNICOLOR
GONNA MAYBE SEN FOR YOUR SISTER
WHEN DE BABY BORN
Long-guts long-eye poor-brag
edge-up frien(d)ing
WEEK SIX 33-333
BUMB-BUM is a small but growing
village near the Capital of St. Vincent.
We have not yet devised a means
of spelling its name in a way
that satisfactorily indicates the way
it is pronounced.
Friday, February 6th. New Zealand Day
WEEK SEVEN 40-326
JAZZ, the Sane Man said,
is a bit like surgery. You need it.
You buy it privately, or you socialize it
if you dare.
Also, it purifies by probing—even in public.
Cuts out the stuff and nonsense. But
it tends to heal sweeter if the instruments
are not too sterilized.
Own-way radical
gutsify jokify hug-up
WEEK TEN 61-305
OX: Man pass here, yet?
ASS: No, man, Ox. Man does done dey home in
he bed this time of a evenin.
OX: Good. Let we rest here out the sun, talk
little bit.
PARROT: Littlebit littlebit littlebit.
OX: But Ass, is six years now I ain’t see you. I
think you did loss?!
ASS: Loss! I livin for years just behind da bush
dey. Let Man do he own wuk. I is now my
own independent ass-self. Nuttin but medi-
tate and eat grass all the time. Only ting, I
does have to be careful hold back meself when I
feel to bray!
PARROT: Braybray braybray.
OX: Well boy, Ass, you lucky, nuh!? I wukkin for
Man like a cattle every day, till me tongue
dry-up and me tail ben-up.
ASS: You must be a ass. All you have to do is play
loss like me. Or better still, tomorrow
mornin when wuk to start, don’t mek one
bellow; just drop down right by Man foot,
breed heavey, and say yo sick.
PARROT: Trick, trick, sick trick!
MAN (next morning): My God! You ever see anyting so!? My ass
loss already, and now my damn ox fall down
wid bad feelins. Who the hell will do my
work for me now!
PARROT: Sen for Ass. Behind-the-bush-behind-the-
bush,
behind-the-bush dey!
MAN: ASS!!! Come outta dey, you wutlass …
PARROT: Lassassassass ass ASS ASS AASSS
(Based on one of the many “stories” I’ve heard over the years from an old friend, Elias Roache)
March 3rd, 1976 Arsch Wednesday
WEEK ELEVEN 68-298
O GIVE ME A HOME
THE SANE MAN SAID
WHERE YOU CAN CARRY THE PHONE
NUMBERS IN YOUR HEAD
AND THE GODS ARE HAPPY AND GROOVING
AND THE BAKERS DON’T OWN
ALL THE BREAD
INSTEAD
YOU’RE FREE TO ROAM
WHEREVER YOU’RE LED
BY YOUR OWN
HEAD
AND THE CHILDREN ARE HAPPY AND MOVING
AND YOUR LIFE IS YOUR OWN
EVEN WHEN YOU’RE DEAD
AND EVEN WHEN YOU’RE DEAD
LOVE SMILES ON YOUR BED
WITH TEETH AS WHITE AS FOAM
Quite a few shopping days after last Christmas
(March: 57th issue of BIM—Caribbean Literary Magazine published
(1974: in Barbados
WEEK TWELVE 75-291
O
AMEN
MY MOTHER
HELP ME
TO AROUSE
NOT necessarily
OFFEND
THEIR
SENSIBILITIES
thus and thus dreamed the sane man
Whose mother is Amen
Much-up Much-up own-way
gutsify nyant-and-go-away
—Shake Keane was born in St. Vincent in 1927, he started playing the trumpet at age six and was a bandleader at 14. Keane acheived international acclaim as a jazz trumpeter, but his poetry remains less well known. He completed some five monographs of poetry before his death in 1997, and in 1979, won the Cuban Casa de las Americas Poetry Prize for One a Week with Water. It was in this collection that lie achieved his most imaginative commentary on Caribbean society and specifically St. Vincent. Keane uses his native community as a base for an incisive and witty commentary about Caribbean society as a whole. The reader is presented with a simple calendar offering observations for each week, described by Keane in the introduction as “notes and rhymes.” They take the forms of collaged verse, riddles, stories, letters, aphorisms, reportage and rhyme, interspersed with personal references and dialect. By converting a Caribbean, and specifically St. Vicentian, oral tradition to text, Keane has managed to both pay homage to a rural culture and obliquely comment on the characteristics of order and chaos in that society.
Related
If Marvel Comics had gotten around to it, Oscar Wao would have been a hero. As it is, Junot Díaz stepped in and made him one first.
That night, Sophonie conceived at the height of the downpour.
Originally published in
BOMB 86,
Winter 2004
Featuring interviews with Brooke Alfarmo, Stanley Greaves, Santiago Sierra, Erna Brober, Jorge Volpi and Martin Solares, and Jesus Tenreiro-Degwitz and Carlos Brillembourg.
