Kezumie Weekly

Outside of the baby boomers generation of the Alma Mock Yens and Velma Pollards, Kezumie Weekly is easily one of the most likeable and relatable female poets showing up on the local scene. I was lucky to have met upon her poems in Bookends - the weekly literary supplement carried in the Jamaica Observer - some months ago and believe me, she leaves an awesome taste in the mouth.

Her poems make the most economic use of lines and words I've ever seen, but surely they are enough to cut on the edge of some really sensitive issues that ride the female experience. She tells the stories whispered under the breaths of girls in agony, trivial to all in conventional circles - except to the one who feels it. Her language beautifully couples the paradoxical angst of feeling and the need for rationale. The titles Daddy Dearest, Fairytale Stories, Doll House and Superwoman say it all.

But the titles are not giveaways at all, I like the twists she spins in the belly of her poems, for example, in her Gardening (reminiscent of William Blake's A Poison Tree):

Yesterday my love for you was a rose garden
Rising each day I
watered it with tears
pruned it with suspicions,
poured fertiliser of fears
Today I wake to find that
time has replaced my roses
with weeds.
My daily rituals were not in vain.

And who saw the now most memorable "Cupid should have shot you twice" , coming in Senegal?

The twinkle in your eyes alerted me of a smile
You smile because I'm rantintg again
This time about her callings. You smile showing scant regard for my insecurities. Defending
yourself, you seek silence with a kiss. Retalitating
with a frown, I thought,

Cupid should have shot you twice.

I, in particular, am most in love with her Superwoman:

Life has stolen your joy
Rewarding you with struggles.
Fret not
For tonight there is a place:
A hero's retreat
Where hardlines transform into smiles
Disappointments bring laughter
Where sinister pranks ceased
And life's cruel whispers muted
But for now
I
Balance my fears with yours

And let me not forget to mention the senses raised in Haiku #1

growing
his dreams
in my womb

Kezumie gets us interested in poetry - a genre many have shied away from because words arranged on a page just has too many blanks to be filled with imagination. Her language and writing style give access to the meanings she has organised on a page. I haven't stopped to check if her work has meters or rhythm, or whether they are sonnets or continuous verse; but undoubtedly, her words are the kind that speak to my spirit and that I would like to have in my ear or on some really nice paper.

Kezumie Weekly really seems to stem the gripe of bad news often stemming from our generation now and gives a well-needed burst of hope and artistic inspiration.

S.S.

Storing Stories

Where do you store your stories:

do you make for them a place, outfitted
to show that special face; or simply clutched in a tight embrace?
Do you hold them like little hands, safe in the pockets of a sundress; or
Are you one to trust the vault of your head?

How do you savour your pages?
How do you cling to intimacy with the covers of a finished book?

S.S. on the hunt for pics.

Liguanea Festival of Fine Art and Photography - 2009

The Liguanea Festival of Fine Art and Photography (2009) which just wrapped up yesterday after a full day in the Kingston sun, is definitely a first timer's love. It was a burst of sweetness seeing the strictly operated, open-air parking lot of the Liguanea Plaza transformed into this organised chaos of pedestrian Art Land with distinct streets and avenues; formal couches sitting on the asphalt pavement and cool lyming bars so that you could stop, sit and take in the grand disbelief. It was a scene - I believe - straight out of none other an artist's imagination.

To expectation, the painters had a strong presence, but I remember them most because they effected a sense of a communal celebration of elements of the allure of the Jamaican landscape - its indigenous magic and textures, its people as precious. Old houses are captured surreal with charm and beauty; even the provocative 'generation now' held its place on canvas. The pride for things Jamaican climbed to fever- pitch. Photography too, as art, also had its presence. In fact, I counted no less than seven booths - maybe more - pitting strongly for sales against the painters and jewellers.

Festivals is definitely the way to pull out spenders in these slow down times. I know that only an event or piece that rocks my soul or jabs my heart with sentiment will get me to shell out my scarce dollars these days. So for that the organisers of The Liguanea Festival of Fine Arts and Photography 2009 definitely get my props.

On the other side however, had you attended the festival last year, you needn't have gone again yesterday। Nakazzi, Howard Moo Young, JIPO and a number of others were there again in pretty much the same spots, booths and streets with almost exactly the very wares you might have seen last year! This for me was disorienting! I think the exhibitors perhaps reckoned that people like myself would not have been back this year and so didn't think to update their portfolio. Or maybe they thought we loved the pieces so much, they decided to give us another chance at buying them. Persons seemed to have enjoyed the painting workshop even at $1500 per head (kids) and $3000 (adults). Persons not able to afford those recession not-so-friendly prices, had a blast getting dirty in the mud, making clay pottery.

All in all, if youv'e never been - The Liguanea Festival of Fine Art and Photography is a nice bite for the aesthetically inclined. See you there next year.




S.S. on the ground, more time.

Travels on a page

Without any apology, I admit - I am a travel enthusiast, well... travel junkie is more fitting. I just can't get enough of it, I am positively hooked on going places, the novelty of meeting new peoples, learning the stories of their cultures, and of course the colours and unique perpectives enriching their languages.

Speaking on another more primal 'raw chaw' level, I'd say there is nothing quite like leaping into the sky, racing onto another's tarmac; and leaving the baggage of your burdens a yard (at home). You get to emerge, as from a cocoon, in elsewhere even as someone else if you so choose.

But truth be told, I've only been to x places and I am currently fanning a never ending wish list of places I am craving to see: Alaska, couple places in France, Cuba (again), Amsterdam, the Dalmatian Coast, Hungary, St. Martin, Germany, Peru, Switzerland, Australia, Sweden, China, Japan, Jamaica - Dunn's River Falls, Mayfield Falls, Nanny Falls ... you get the picture, right? As you must imagine, getting there is an entirely different story. So in the interim, I'm travelling there on the bus of imagination and riding the turns of a page. Since October of last year I have met countless of unforgettable characters, searched out the nooks and crannies of their spaces and experiences - all with the turning of a page, pages and covers. I must admit too, that I get attached, saddened at times when the plot ends and I have to leave them behind the covers. This is, of course, until I make another good find and 'travel' to somewhere else. But what's so good about the page is that the characters are immortalised between the covers and can come back to life with a quick look back. This, I believe is the best preparation for the time when I will actually get to touch down on these places in real life then, it will be heart and soul chocolate and skittles.

So far, I've been to: Jamaica in The Painted Canoe

The Painted Canoe by Anthony C. Winkler takes you into the simple life of peasant Jamaican fishermen skirting life/death on the paradise island. Winkler skillfully moves in and across the folk perspective of Zechariah and the intellect of the learned doctor - the two categories of perpectives alive, governing and duelling in the Jamaican psyche. Zechariah however, emerges as the face of unsung Jamaican heroes - poor, proud, ugly, unlearned, tough with a stubborn faith and indomitable human spirit that only fret kills. Ironically, it is the esteemed doctor - whose creative intellect fails to reconcile faith and purpose with the reality of human agony in this physical and sexual paradise - who kills himself. Certainly, in this novel, you see a frightening side to the sun, sea and paradise of this tropical island; but you also find that its true wealth is its people who in the face of such a frighteningly agonising reality of sufferation do much more than merely survive - they lead happy, meaningful, content and spiritually rich lives.

The novel also allows you to travel across the island from the most western locale of Sav-la-mar (Westmoreland) to Port Antonio, the elite Mona and the seductive Junction, St. Mary.

Well enough for one day, more anon.

S.S.