On April 20,  the National Child Month Committee launched its theme and program for May, Child’s month.  The theme this year is: “Listen Up ! Children’s Voice Matter. Given a common maxim in Jamaica, “children must be seen and not heard,” that some parents,  teachers and other adults use to measure a child’s behaviour, this theme is relevant and timely.

Some adults still do not understand the potential danger of silencing a child. All too often a silent child is deemed to be well-behaved. However, this is a very dangerous precedent as it implies that a child has nothing to say, certainly nothing worth hearing.  If a child is not allowed to speak and express herself or himself, the emotional and psychological implications are far and wide. It could result in the child being afraid or reluctant to tell their parents if they are abused or harassed or bullied. While a few children are just naturally quiet, most children are expressive as that is how they learn and engage with their environment.

Hence the theme, Listen Up ! Children’s Voice Matter is a warning to all of us, parents and non-parent or guardians alike, to listen to the children and know what their hopes, fear, and aspirations are.  Adults need to take a backseat sometimes and just listen. To our children and learn what their views are about development and what Jamaica should look like in the next 20 or 50 years, after all they will be the ones to live in it. The theme is also a warning for us to re-examine the implicit and explicit message we send our children that  “adults are always right and children are liars.” This prevalent belief further shuts down children and makes them even more vulnerable to negative and predatory adults.  While parents are expected to know what is best for their child, it is still important that the child’s feelings and sensibilities are taken into account. I invite all parents to grant their children the opportunity to share their feelings and ideas, and one way that educators and psychologists will agree is to use the creative arts as expression, poetry, drama, drawing, and any other medium.

We are better informed and are better able to help our children cope with whatever situations they encounter if they know they are being listened to and you the parent is interested in hearing what they have to say.  It is vitally important that Children are Seen and Heard, which is why, when COVID and the lock-in began I immediately send around a call, asking parents to encourage their children to write and draw about how they were feeling and share. Even though most schools have resumed face-to-face, the threat of COIVD still lingers, and just like us adults children are trying to make sense of the major interruption of their lives in the last two years.

Parents and caregivers should not believe that if they take care of a child’s basic needs, then the child will not be stressed or need a space to communicate their feelings. Wrong.  No matter how effective we try to hide and shelter our children, they know and are impacted when we are stressed and with whatever else is going on in the world. They hear and are often impacted more than we think.

Heaven, Age 8

In 2004 and  2015, a study done by Hyson and Kostelnik revealed that “Children’s social and emotional health affects their overall development and learning. Children who are mentally healthy tend to be happier, show greater motivation to learn, have a more positive attitude toward school, more eagerly participate in-class activities, and demonstrate higher academic performance…(Hyson 2004; Kostelnik et al. 2015).” If this is not your child, then you need to pause and learn what your child is thinking and feeling.

The more opportunities we give our children to express themselves, and tune into what they are saying without telling them to be quiet or shut up, the more informed we are and better able to help them cope with these times and process what is happening around them

For younger children under 10 years old, Justina Goh, a parenting writer, recommends 5 Ways  parents can “Help Children Identify and Express their Emotions:”

1.Name the feeling 2. Talk about how feelings can be expressed 3. Offer a deep nurturing connection 4. Resist the urge to punish 5. Praise and practice – often!

 While Listening and communicating with young children can be challenging given the numerous questions and whys why is the moon round? why is covid a pandemic? why am I a girl? Why is it a constant, and a vital part of their learning process? But we must be mindful too that communicating with our teens and providing non-judgemental space for them to talk about their Feelings really begin with us and requires practice and patience.

 

Covid 19 Pandemic provided parents and children with the unprecedented opportunity to be under the same roof 24/7 for almost 2 years. For some, it resulted in more spent quality time, especially if space and resources were not a factor, but for others, this shut-in period has been very challenging in numerous ways as both parent and child have been forced into an excessive situation of being home together and no outlet for many parents were working from home and no outlet for many children were going to school online and parents having to juggle being teachers while also maintaining their working life.

What has this unprecedented time meant for our children?  What sense are they making of covid-19? How is it altering how they will relate to others in the future? What fears and anxieties has it awakened? What is their sense of a future? We really won’t know the full impact until another five or ten years, but what we do know is that it has changed relationships and what we consider normal. As we move back into a new normal way of being, it is still imperative that we listen to our children. Having worked with children at every level of their educational process and taught poetry, creative dramatic and story-telling as vehicles of expression,  I know from first-hand experience, as well as from research, that these mediums allow for the greatest creative expression and honest sharing so that parents/guardians can discern what’s going on with their children.

 

As parents, caregivers, and mindful adults we need not fear if we allow our children too many opportunities to express their feelings that it will come back to bite us, so to speak.  Evidence suggests the converse; when adults treat children with respect and dignity and demonstrate that their feelings and ideas matter, children reciprocate with mutual respect and love.  Allow our Children to be Seen and Heard and Reap the Rewards by helping to create a safe and healthy environment for all our children. These images and drawings below are expressions of our children and offer a glimpse of the impact of the pandemic on our children. Listen Up ! Children’s Voice Matter

Crisis

by Courtney Greaves, Age 11

Crisis, Crisis!

Education inna crisis!

Children a bawl,

a who fah fault?

Teacha’s a bawl,

a who fah fault?

Money gone missin’,

What a cocka-fault! Who really at fault?

Crisis, Crisis!

Everything in a crisis.

Legacy gone, 

Inspiration gone.

School a lockdung

A nuh Covid fault.

Crisis, Crisis!

Police inna crisis!

Crisis, Crisis!

Hospital inna crisis!

Crisis, Crisis!

The worl’ inna crisis!

WHO AT FAULT?!

A NUH COVID FAULT?

What a cocka-fault~

My Life in the COVID Crisis

Oren, 14 years old

Life is meant to be enjoyed wisely

And as humans we take care of each

other proudly 

COVID has impacted our lives

in the bad and good times

But we as a people put our effort

into making a change for a nation

We have suffered our own types

of pain during this challenge

God has had a plan for us to seek for answers

 and when we work together as a nation

we can fix the problem.

How I feel about COVID19

Zaira, Age 10

I feel bad because we can’t go out or see family members often

 and I can’t socialize with friends a lot. Corona makes me feel

 terrible. Even worst – it’s hard to breathe in a face mask. 

Corona is also a stress to me because going online is hard to do.

Corona affects me in many ways like I can’t go to face-to-face school. 

We have to do many things like wear a mask, and social distance to 6 feet apart. 

Avoid sharing, wash hands regularly.  It is hard to not share when you are kind.  Corona makes me feel scared especially when my Family has to go

to Face to Face work.

This is how I feel about COVID-19

Zamoya, Age 8

Unhappy and scared.  It’s hard for me to breathe in the mask. 

COVID-19 is a very bad virus.  It is so bad I cannot play with my friends. 

 I am sad because I cannot go to face-face class. 

We have to wear face mask, social distance, avoid sharing. 

We must follow the protocols. I am scared because my mother

has to work at the office.  I wish COVID would go away.

Covid-19 is a Bad Thing 

Mehki, Age 8 

Covid-19 is a bad thing!

If you get sick and can pay the expenses

you can live for a longer time.

I don’t feel like Covid-19 is a good thing to get

because you will get sick and maybe even die.

That’s why I put on my mask and wash my hands 

I use the hand sanitiser when I am going out. 

When I got Covid-19 I didn’t feel anything. 

I thought I had a cold 

One night I got too hot and then I had to take a shower

but it couldn’t be hot water because

that will make me more hotter and

I may could have died.

I use cold water instead to cool me down.

I feel fine now!

Untitled

Shawn Paul, 18

Covid  is a virus

that is dangerous for you.

You might catch a flu

and you might get a tummy ache

but the severity of this virus

could put you in a hole.

So always wear your mask

and keep sanitized

because the safety of your health

is the safety of all.

pictures by Zahra, Safayah, Mora, Skye, all Age 9

I encourage all parents to provide space and time for their children to express their feelings and ideas through the use of a creative medium, and look out for the launch of Breadfruit & Ackee and journal for Caribbean Children.

*A partial version of this article was published in The Daily Observer, Monday, May 30, 2020

They say all little girls dream of being mothers. I don’t know how true that statement is, but I remember consciously planning my motherhood when I was about ten years old.

I was going to marry a cricket fast bowler and we were going to have four children. I was going to play outside barefoot with my children. I was going to plait my daughters’ hair in three, triangle-parted just like my mother did mine. We were going to go to the beach every Sunday and eat mango ice cream. Our life would be perfect.

I didn’t marry a cricket player and I didn’t have four children. Three seemed plenty. We did play and eat ice cream and I did plait my daughters’ hair and I loved being a mother as much as I love being a writer, and I miss mothering young children.

As I think about being a mother this year, this is my offering.

100+ Voices for Miss Lou is an anthology of  poetry, tributes, interviews and essays by  107 contributors that took me two years to put it together. The anthology is a homage to The Honourable Louise Bennett-Coverley whose work and life have been sources of inspiration, and have helped me to develop as a poet and a social/cultural activist. While many Jamaicans want to trap Miss Lou in a bandana and smiling , I know her as a warrior who had to fight numerous battles to stand in her own shoe, and this collection is to help shatter the very narrow box into which we have imprisoned Miss Lou.

Putting an anthology together is perhaps harder than writing a single collection of poems or stories or even a novel because so many people are involved with personalities and a different sense of deadline, and also their own agenda, which might not dovetail with yours the editor. While I cannot say that when the idea of the anthology came to me that I knew what I wanted it to be or even knew the different sections, no I did not. What  I knew was, it was intended to fulfil a promise I made to Miss Lou when I first interviewed her in 1987. In 1987 when I entered the doctoral programme at the University of California, Berkeley, I initially thought about writing a biography of Louise Bennett, but after the first of two interviews, the project seemed overwhelming so I abandoned it. An excerpt of the interview is included in the anthology.

Readers will enjoy contributions by the obvious suspects such as Mervyn Morris and Carolyn Cooper, both of whom have done extensive work on Louise Bennett as well as poetry and essays by Joan Andrea Hutchinson,  Mutabaruka, Amina Blackwood Meeks, Linton Kwesi Johnson, then some wonderful surprises by Kei Miller, the essay on her war poems by Dalea Bean and the marvellous sharings and  tributes by Lorna Goodison, the former Poet Laureate, and the former Prime Minister, PJ Patterson and the Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Oliva Grange. While most of the pieces are first time publication, there are a number of pieces that have appeared elsewhere. Also, in order to get the diversity of voices and include a number of persons who worked with Miss  Lou, but who aren’t writers, I ended up doing eleven interviews…the work was enormous and demanding making this anthology come alive.

I have gotten a lot of queries about the cover image which is by Tommy Ricketts, and my first and only consideration for the cover.  Tommy Ricketts has six other images in the collection and this work came about as a request from me to him, when I were organizing Miss Lou’s centennial, and hosted an exhibition of Tommy Ricketts unorthodox images in the foyer gallery at the Regional Headquarters of The University of the West Indies, Mona. This image, like the others, debunks all the popular and loved images of Miss Lou dressed in her folk costume, regale with a bandana.  Instead, in an attempt to have readers and lovers of Miss Lou see the fierce strategic side of her, she is armed with a nib pen, her weapon of choice, her sword strapped on her back and behind her are two male elders, also armed with pens, who have allowed her into the valley of liberation. This image shatters any box into which others might want to confine Miss Lou, who is more than a comic, more than a smiling sweet woman who promoted the Jamaican language and legitimize our nation language.

The importance of 100 + Voices for Miss Lou is not just s tribute to her, but more importantly, a place where lovers of Louise Bennett-Coverley’s work and the work of those who were touched and moved by her generosity of spirit can find in one single collection, a rich, diverse body of work that reveals the range of Louise Bennett’s contribution to Jamaican culture.  It is a teaching tool as well as a full read for those who love literature.

 My goal as a writer is to publish at least 50 books before I transition from this life and to have them all made into movie and translated into 200 languages. I am affirming 3 Netflix Series: Love’s Promise; Until Judgment Comes and Bake-Face and Other Guava Stories…

I am also working on a children’s picture book of Miss Lou, which I plan to have out next year.

I welcome your help and sponsorship to make these dreams a reality.

Please note, 100+ Voices for Miss Lou is available at the following locations locally and internationally:

§  The University Bookshop, The UWI, Mona Campus

§  Kingston Bookshop Limited

§  Fontana Pharmacy

§  Books & CD’s (located at the Norman Manley International Airport)

    Sangster’s Book Stores Limited

Buy a copy for yourself, and buy a copy for a local library or school. I thank you for your support.

The eBook is available at:

Amazon (Kindle and Paperback) click here

BookFusion click here

ORDERING INFORMATION

For orders and customer service in the United States, Caribbean and Latin America contact Longleaf Services, Inc.

Customer inquiries to:

Customer Service

Longleaf Services, Inc.

116 S Boundary St.

Chapel Hill, NC 27514

Tel: (800) 848-6224

Fax: (800) 272-6817

Local or long distance tel: (919) 966-7449

Local or long distance fax: (919) 962-2704

Email: customerservice@longleafservices.org

orders@longleafservices.org

http://www.longleafservices.org

San Number: 203-3151

For orders and customer service in Jamaica contact Kingston Bookshop Limited

Kingston Bookshop Limited

80 King Street

Kingston, Jamaica

Contact: Jermaine Simms

Tel: (876) 948-6928, (876) 948-7198

Fax: (876) 967-3231

Email: jsimms@kingstonbookshopjm.com

http://www.kingstonbookshopjm.com

For orders and customer service in Canada

For Ampersand Sales:
Toronto tel: 866-849-3819
Vancouver tel: 888-323-7118
Email:  https://ampersandinc.ca/contact/

For UTP Distribution:
Tel: 1-800-565-9523
Fax: 1-800-221-9985
Email:  utpbooks@utpress.utoronto.ca
EDI through Pubnet:  SAN 115 1134

For orders and customer service in the UK, Europe, Central Asia, Middle East & Africa contact Eurospan Group

Eurospan Group

Gray’s Inn House

127 Clerkenwell Road

London, EC1R 5DB

United Kingdom

Trade Orders & Enquiries:

Tel: +44 (0) 1767 604972

Fax: +44 (0) 1767 601640

Email: eurospan@turpin-distribution.com

Individual Orders:

http://www.eurospanbookstore.com

Individuals may also order using the contact details above

For further information:

Tel: +44 (0) 207 240 0856

Fax: +44 (0) 207 379 0609

Email: info@eurospan.co.uk

I can’t imagine why Jamaica would consider remaining with the Commonwealth. I truly do not understand why the Government is investing money in hosting the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge at this time when in Jamaica, every day, so many people go hungry, some literally starving as a result of COVID-19, when thousands of children have not gotten an education because they don’t have Internet access and now need remedial support, when so many roads are in need of repair, when violence, terror, and fear of illegally smuggled guns are rampant, when our beaches are eroding, and most citizens do not access to them anyway.

Why should Jamaicans be subjected to the rhetoric of the Duke and the Duchess about staying in the Commonwealth? What has the Commonwealth done for us except extracted our natural resources, brutalised us with colonial institutions, and exploited and overworked our African ancestors for more than 300 years?

Unless the Duke and Duchess are coming with an Official apology from Queen Elizabeth II and Britain, unless they are prepared to offer viable reparations in the form of at least four new state-of-the-art hospitals, providing every rural school with Internet and indoor sanitation, solar power, and a laptop for each child, repair all our roads, provide irrigation and machinery for all our farmers, provide mental health care for the many still dazed from the trauma of slavery, provide free tertiary education for every Jamaican child wanting to pursue such course of study, and other skills training for those who opt for other choices, building at least two museums and returning stolen artifacts, and augment the salaries of teachers, nurses and police , then I am afraid I can’t welcome them, nor sanction our government expending our money to host them.

But even with these overdue concessions, I am completely against staying with the Commonwealth. We were robbed of our African names, our religion, which was maligned, our language, and repeatedly lied to that we came from the ‘Dark Continent’, instead of being told of Africa’s vast natural wealth, gold, diamond, oil, natural gas, uranium, platinum, copper, cobalt, iron, bauxite and cocoa, that were and  continue to be extracted to enrich Europe and the Americas. We were not told about Africa’s diverse civilizations, the Kingdom of Kush, Land of Punt, Carthage in Tunisia, Mali and Songhai Empires, the Great Zimbabwe so many others. We were deliberately miseducated and Christianity used to oppress us and deny us an education and destroying our family structure.

I hail Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley and I hope our own government and the rest of this region will take the brave step she did and stand up as a true independent nation, not simple changing the Union Jack for the Black, Green and Gold. It is time to right history and once and for all throw off the colonial legacy that has unchained and dragging us down. Why should much needed resources go to pay a Governor General who represents the Queen?

The Commonwealth was formally constituted by the London Declaration in 1949 to maintain its power and control over its former territories. When has the Queen really represented, cared for or protected us?  What are the tangible and evident benefits of remaining under the Commonwealth? None!

Although many want to sweep slavery into the sea and say we must get over ourselves, we endured 179 years of severe brutality and terror, rape and mutilation, worked to death without pay, and at the end, our British oppressor were compensated handsomely for the loss of our labour and we were tossed aside with no land, no food, no home.

Jamaican scholar Orlando Patterson recently said that under British enslavement an estimated five  million Jamaicans were lost to us. We have endured 400 years of colonialism and neo-colonialism that has made Britain one of the wealthiest countries in the world, and still to date we have not received an apology or any compensation. Shame, I say to the queen and Britain!  Shame I say to the Duke and Duchess for coming here with such a bold-faced request! Shame I say to us for welcoming them and acting like beggars!

We must not allow our children or our people to stand in the sun and wave flags. We must be resolute and stand as a proud people in honour of Nanny, Tacky, Paul Bogle, and all the nameless heroes who risked their lives for us. If we are serious about development, liberation and the sovereignty of our people, if we understand what true Independence means, let us not dishonour ourselves, not subject our people to insult, not throw away needed money and resources on those who have continuously exploited and abused us.

Let Jamaica stand as a proud Independent nation. Let us get from under the Queen’s frock.

“I am not a writer who happens to be black.  I am a writer who is black and female. These aspects of my identity strengthen my creative gifts. They are neither burdens nor limitations…” bell hooks from remembered rapture

bell hooks’ feminist scholarship has informed and sharpened both my creative work, as well as my scholarship. She has influenced and shaped many Caribbean women scholars, who have been paying homage on social media and in other formats since her death on December 15 at the age of 69. While I cannot claim bell as a friend we were more than acquaintances and during our time together she taught me a valuable lesson as a sister-feminist, for which I am eternally grateful.

In 1994 the University of Kentucky hosted the Kentucky Women’s Writers’ Conference. Gloria Anzaldua, bell hooks and I were the featured writers and presenters for the 3-day conference. Gloria  and I were both coming from the Bay Area, California, and  were friends having met and read at several venues over the years. I  knew of bell hooks’ work well and, in fact, had been challenged and chastised by at least two professors at UC Berkeley when I was pursuing my doctorate in the late 80s for citing her Ain’t I A Woman. They said she was not a serious scholar and her work lacked academic merit as she did not follow the standard footnote/endnote citation. I argued the point, but the professors did not relent, and I often wondered what they thought when bell hooks became more famous than they. I make this point because many young scholars are not aware of some of the struggles bell hooks faced, not just by white academics, but also by a few prominent black feminist and male scholars who did not accept or respect her work.

 I was thrilled when I was informed that I would be sharing the stage with bell, and we each were scheduled to do a reading, participate in a panel discussion and lead a creative writing workshop. We all were scheduled to arrive the evening before the start of the conference and were invited for dinner. Less than 15 minutes upon checking into my room, the phone rang and  the voice on the other end said, “Hello Opal, this is bell can I come to your room?” I was tired and was planning to rest before the scheduled dinner, so agreed to her coming in half an hour.

In exactly 30 minutes bell knocked on my door. We exchange pleasantries and talked a little about each other’s work and what we planned to do at the conference. Then bell switched and asked directly, “How much are they paying you?” I was thrown off because no one ever asked me what I was getting paid, so I muttered unsure if I should reveal my fee. However, since bell was forthright and unrelenting,  I told her. She shook her head, said umum. “I’m getting almost twice what you’re getting; that’s not right because we’re doing the same number of sessions.  I bet you didn’t negotiate.” And she was right.  Until that time whenever I was invited by a university I accepted what they offered. All the other arrangements for us including airfare,  accommodation and per diem were the same, and bell told me that she had negotiated her honorarium.

bell then  looked me directly in the eye and said, “I’m going to tell you something that you need to do from now on.” She leaned forward in the chair on which she sat while I sat at the foot of the bed. “Whenever a university or any place invites you to read or conduct a workshop don’t accept what they offer you at first. Always ask for at least 20% more than what you want so that you can bargain. I learned that the hard way.” I was so grateful because I had asked several writers before about what they were paid and they generally beat around the bush without disclosing. But not bell hooks. She took me under her wings, and added,  “get yourself an agent who will do all the negotiating and do at least 4 engagements monthly.” I told her that was impossible. She frowned and objected.

I explained that  I had three young children, ages 3, 5 and 10 respectively, was recently divorced , I headed the department at my university that was under-funded, and in order to be there it took a tremendous amount of negotiating and support with family, friends, students and faculty. In short it was a miracle that I was able to be there. She embraced me and said, “Sister Opal, I understand, you are wading through a river, but you are moving.” This thoughtful action illuminated a passage from hooks’ Ain’t I a woman that I had underlined and quoted years earlier.

“By completely accepting the female role as defined by patriarchy, enslaved black women embraced and upheld an oppressive sexist social order and became (along with their white sisters) both accomplices in the crimes perpetrated against women and the victims of those crimes.”

That was such a moment of light and assurance, and those 4 days in Kentucky were awesome as I got to hang out with bell, which also included going with her to buy shoes.  She had a fetish for shoes and bought 4 pairs, and admonished me for not even buying one pair.

By that single generous act of schooling me about the college circuit, bell hooks demonstrated the true meaning of feminism, which promoted me to secure an agent six months later even though I was not able to be on the road as frequently as bell suggested because of my family and academic life.

Nikky Finney is another sister/writer friend (featured in the photo) who has also been supportive, and who had recommended me for the conference. Although that was bell’s and my first meeting, we had communicated a few years before when she was writing Sisters of the Yam: Black women and self-recovery, 1993. I had been performing with devorah major as Daughter of Yam, and bell wanted to use a quote from our performance. Several years later when that collection was being republished she reached out to me again for a blurb.

bell was forthright, generous and had bottled energy.  I remember one of our late night conversations, when my eyes were blurry with sleep and she was energetic, and me asking her  how she managed to write and published so much. She laughed and said, “I don’t have three young children.” Touché I nodded.  Then in a more serious tone she added, “ I have serious insomnia so I write to try and find asleep. Also, I am driven to comment on all aspect of black life, to shed light.”

What impressed me about bell hooks at the conference, as well as other times seeing and hearing her, is her analytical ability. Her penchant for bringing many thoughts together through her wide-range and vast reading, and her unapologetic stance about  being black and woman and all the things that she felt black writers and artists worldwide needed to do.

“The black aesthetic movement was a self-conscious articulation by many of a deep fear that the power of art reside in its potential to transgress the boundaries…” she pronounced in Yearning, one of her many books that I taught over the years.  And that was indeed her charge and the work that she demanded that women feminist writers do continuously— bulldoze boundaries, deconstruct discourses and create new paradigms.

A few years after the conference when bell was coming to the Bay Area to present she reached out and asked me to introduce her at the event. I wrote a poem as way of introduction, which I am unable to locate now. bell was someone whose work I respected and taught, and she likewise respected and taught my work. We communicated over the years, briefly. We saw each other a few times. In New York at one conference, we talked over tea about home and wanting to return.  She was fed up with being in New York and wanted to return to Kentucky and I was similarly wanting to return to Jamaican from California.  When she finally moved back to teach at Berea College, Kentucky, in 2004 I sent her a congratulatory email for being able to make that move and wished her wellness as she had been having health challenges.

bell hooks knew all too well domination and had managed to find a way out of its grasp.

“A culture of domination demands of all its citizens self-negation.

The more marginalized, the more intense the demand. Since black people, especially the underclass, are bombarded by messages that we have no value, are worthless it is no wonder that we fall prey to nihilistic despair…”  (from Black Looks)

The above quote by hooks is relevant to the conditions that many Jamaicans and other Caribbean people are currently facing given the crime rate, the cost of living, the gender-based violence and the horrendous physical and sexual crimes against our children. The nihilism is evident in the acceptability of the present reality and the general belief that there is nothing we can do beyond trying to survive. hooks’ work, although focuses on black life in the USA, offer us many parallels in the Caribbean. It provides us with a framework to engaged in critical feminist discourse that incorporates culture, the patriarchal and colonial  modules that still govern/define our lives. Her books, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, 1984; Talking Back: Thinking feminist, thinking Black. Between the Lines, 1989; Yearning: race, gender, and cultural politics,1990; Black Looks: Race and representation, 1992 are lucid and straight-forward readings that connect the dots about how the historical antecedents continue to move us further away from who are, and our goal to resist the domination in every form.

For all educators and those wishing to truly create a liberating pedagogy, studying Teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom, 1994 and  Outlaw culture: resisting representation, 1994  are prerequisite readings. For those writers or those who desire to write or who teach creative writing,  I recommend these of hooks’ books: Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood (1996); Wounds of passion: a writing life (1997); Remembered rapture: the writer at work (1999). I have required these readings when I taught in the MFA in Creative writing program at California College of the Arts.

bell hooks constantly moved through fear to unbarring the door and she kept the door open not just so that she could enter, but that other writers and feminists of colour could enter too. She blended scholarship with creativity, inserting her voice as Primary source, worthy to stand alone and tell her truth.  A true trail blazer she took Audre Lorde’s intersectional concept a step further thus by creating more space for other voices.

I am honoured that I knew her and got to share the stage with her a few times. Most importantly, I thank her for setting me on the path to ask for what I am worth and deserve.

Sleep now my sister. You have gifted us with a formidable body of work to feed our minds and guide our path.  Asé

This article was published in Bookend, The Observer, Jamaica, Dec 25-26, 2021.

---

Zion Roses is the title of the collection. The collection engages with the loss of our roots as Caribbeans, we who have been separated from our ancestral history , continue to suffer  disenfranchisements. Loss of land, language and cultures report in our daily experiences. Zion Roses acknowledges our pain but it does not ask readers to wallow in self-pity, but to rise-up and overcome. The collection engages with music, art, and literature, as avenues of overcoming.  Descendants are encouraged to innovate and lift ourselves/ themselves into a brighter future, to use dance, music , poetry, and visual art as cure, acknowledging the power in both ‘history’ and ‘history-less-ness.’

In June, 2018, while having lunch with a painter, Stefanie Thomas, who had only a few minutes before completed a painting and set it near an open window to dry, I found my gaze time and again drawn towards the image resting against a wall. I finally got up and studied the painting more closely and I said, “Stefanie, these are flowers falling from heaven, from Zion, a gift.” She studied me and the painting, a smile was her only response.  Days later she called and shared her decision to name the painting … “Zion Roses.” I knew then it would be the title of my next book.

My first collection  Kumina Queen was published in 2016. In that said year I attend Bennington College, Vermont (2016-2018) where I obtained an MFA. Several poems in this collection were penned during my time at Bennington. At Bennington I had the benefit of  working with several significant poets resident in the United States of America, including Major Jackson, Greg Pardlo, and April Bernard. I consider my time spent interfacing with these poets as part of ‘the high.’ But the high did not start there. I had before Bennington, the benefit of mentorship from Edward Baugh and Mervyn Morris. The low …Mama said “Rome was never  built in a day”…poetry needs patience and dedication. I am thrilled  when a new collection is published, but the product  takes time.

This collection captures the scattering and fragmentation of lives — trafficked Africans and their descendants. The continuing impact of European colonisers on the descendants of the enslaved  is of particular importance. The collection reports various influences, with respect to language, foods, and cultural norms; in my mind these influences explain much of the unique multi-layered complex individuals we meet in the Caribbean and the diaspora. The collection introduces subversive voices of persons disenfranchised: “BAG-A-WIRE,” “Mahogany Tree” (Tour guide) , “Telemachus,” and “Jean Michel Basquiat,” to name a few.

Jean Michel Basquiat was born to a Haitian father and mother of Puerto Rican heritage. Basquiat has been described as: rebellious, unique, subversive, difficult, and exceptional. Every black person, more recently termed ‘hybrid,’  should want  to know Basquiat’s story, his successes and his failings. His subversive paintings speak to  his rejection of a system of oppression, ‘The Establishment.’ His paintings report on  life in the USA for  black persons. Basquiat employed symbols in his paintings: skulls, bones, crowns, scribblings and ladders of escape. He used symbols like trademarks.

Zion Roses reports on a history of violence and pain, which may be ascribed to epi-genetic markers ( findings of a recent scientific study) that may one day explain the continuing violence in our  islands. But, most important, the collection encourages overcoming, planting seeds of hope.

LIGNUM VITAE. 

(Three wooden figures, said to be Taino deities -Zemis  on display before the Society of Antiquaries of London.”)

Hardwood taking shape.

Cacique listens to grain

of the wood, turns voice

into form. Ancestors’

knowledge-tree bends

but never breaks, stone-

chisel strips away bark                        

revealing heart-wood

ready for stone grinder.

Beveled liberation. No

Auction Block. Bird-

man finds tree-of-life

good to make ships. 

Audience: Persons who are interested in  postcolonial studies, history of people in the Caribbean, and the complexities of Caribbean persons, will appreciate Zion Roses. 

Covid 19, facilitated my focused attention for approximately 14 months on the third collection. The Black Lives Matter movement confirms that my decision to explore the continuing impact of colonial occupation on trafficked Africans, via  “colonial loss and reconciliation,”  is reasonable and relevant.

I am currently completing my third collection,  this collection, heavily biased towards  ekphrasis, will present “ships that scattered us.” The collection again seeks to be a conduit of voices that had been silenced, voices that now must to be heard. I also continue my tantalizing journey through the works of  Jean Michel Basquiat.

While reading, a word or a sentence often provokes a memory, I am transported to a space where I  try  to resolve unresolved issues, or to document injustices I have unearthed.   I’ll stop and write my thoughts as they come, responding to the artistic intuition/ pulse.  A memory often forms the skeleton or the sub stratum of a poem.  For the poem to evolve  I meditate on the idea of the poem while trying to hear my thoughts clearly; thereafter, I widen areas of consideration through research or further readings in an effort to eliminate limitations I may have subjectively imposed. The lyrical call will already have entered  the lines,  ‘enriching the dry bones.’  My poems are never finished until they achieve the intended purpose, i.e.,  ensuring  the voices of the voiceless can be heard through my writings.

I wish to write the most powerful collection that I can possibly write that will impact lives and foster reconciliation.

I am  a workaholic, nevertheless,  I am a bit disorganized maybe because I am usually doing three projects when other persons  are focused on one.

         LET US PLAY BY MY RULES                                                           

I have been called, yes called

to a city where boys grow into skeletons

and skulls, wearing halos of nails and thorns,

where locusts deconstruct and  strip-down,

like I strip down for you, show you my lines

my angles, my crown. They cross over me,

Madonna, to feel what black-crazy feels like.

They cross me over, sit me down, sing me

soft, sing me wild, ring me with fire. Then

they listen when I testify, a broken heart,

loud, back-talking loud, before they reply,

calling out my name, Jean Michel Basquiat.

I say, “Off with their grinning heads.”

Zion Roses Reviews:

How To purchase a copy

https://www.peepaltreepress.com/books/zion-roses

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/zion-roses-monica-minott/1139189453

How To Contact author:   @mint99wm twitter

I’m Professor Opal Palmer Adisa from Kingston Jamaica where I live and work, the home to reggae music, jerk food and the fastest woman and man in the world. I am a writer of poetry , prose, essays and children’s books. I am a feminist, gender specialist and cultural activist.

From I was in my twenties I have been writing and advocating gender justice, especially in the area of children’s right, specifically for girls to be safe and protected from sexual and physical abuse.

I have also been advocating against gender-based violence, in particular domestic violence that disproportionately affects women and children. I have worked with diverse groups that have made these issues their charge. I have written extensively on the issue, in fact my first short story collection, Bake-Face and Other Guava Stories, 1985, explores both of these issues.

When I was living and teaching in California, USA I taught at California College of the Arts, and headed the Diversity Studies programme, where among looking at Ethnic inclusion also worked  for gender equality; I also works  the Berkeley women’s center, designing and conducting workshops in shelters for women on self-empowerment and regaining their voice after years of domestic abuse.

In the US Virgin Island I worked with the V.I. Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault Council and The Women’s Coalition of St Croix, where I wrote and directed plays as a result of interviewing women on the issue of childhood sexual trauma and domestic violence.

 In Jamaica, as the outgoing University Director of The Institute for Gender and Development Studies, with units in Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago, I had the distinct opportunity to oversee and direct programs that tackled these issues, as well as liaison with community service organizations and NGOs throughout the Caribbean regio n to network around these issues. I have been promoting intergenerational networking of veteran advocates with emerging advocates to build capacity, share best practices and learn from each other and work together to solves many of these issues, especially GBV.  As the present initiator of Thursday in Black in Jamaica, I have led island-wide campaign/demonstrations to bring public awareness to GBV and work to reduce and eventually eliminate it.

Gender equality is the necessary prerequisite to bring about a culture of peace and, it is crucial that women and girls, and men and boys are involved in every aspect of peacebuilding as we must learn to co-exist and thrive together. Gender inequality negatively impacts everyone in the society, and while some men due to their patriarchal upbringing, believe they will lose out as a result of gender equality; they are mistaken.  Everyone wins when the scale is evenly balanced.  Women and girls get to make independent choices and men and boys are no longer have to bear the burden of being bread-winners or protectors as everyone will contribute to their own welfare and safety.  And more importantly, for development, the full participation, intellectual, physical and other areas of both women and men and girls and boys will allow for greater progress over a shorter period of time, and the combination of innate skills will result in peace and more respect and Intunement with our environment. 

Gender equality is the vision of the future that we are working to ensure will be a reality. We are all daily dying from lack of peace, from conflict, from inequality. I firmly believe GE will rebalance and allows us to recalibrate how we can live and work together in peace and harmony.

I identify as an African Jamaican because my ancestral roots are in Africa, and that sense of geographic roots grounds and connects me in a visceral way with the people of Africa; their struggles are mine, and mine theirs, and their past and present achievements are likewise mine.

People of the African diasporas in Jamaica and throughout  Caribbean will feel more connected to their African roots if they are taught about Africa, not just the history of enslavement, where they are always told their people sold them, and never about their people who valiantly fought to keep them from slavery, not about the great accomplishments of Africans way before the Europeans and Asia, and all the natural resources of Africa that has and is still continuing to benefit the world, include the very technology that we now take for granted. We don’t know this history.  We are not taught to love ourselves and honour our ancestors. The education system must change from the colonial model to a Caribbean/African model.

Jamaicans and other Caribbean people have been and will continue to be  involved in contributing to a culture of peace in Africa.  Jamaica was one of the first countries to boycott South African for its racist, apartheid policy; our musicians, Peter Tosh, Bob  Marley, Juddy Mowatt,  and many others have sang about freedom and liberation and peace. Reggae music is known and appreciated globally for its message of peace and liberation; its call to stand and end sufferation… We have been working to bring about peace and have joined out sisters and brothers throughout the African continent to amplify that message and end colonnization.  But more needs and can be done.  One way is to allow for more educational and trade exchange between the Caribbean and Africa; African languages and its full history must be taught throughout the Caribbean. We have to examine and adopt some of the measures of the Queen Mothers of Ghana and the sisters of Nzinga, with our own Nanny and other female fighters, their  strategy and methods of resolving conflict and building coalition can be insightful to our struggles.

I am so excited about my new book for children, Portia Dreams.

It is the childhood story of Portia Simpson Miller, the first and still to date, the only female Prime Minister of Jamaica.

On March 2006 to September 2007 she was elected Prime Minister and again from 5 January 2012 to 3 March 2016. She was the leader of the People’s National Party from 2005 to 2017 and the Leader of the Opposition twice, from 2007 to 2012 and from 2016 to 2017.

Portia Simpson Miller is from a working-class family in the rural area of St Catherine, but she decided very early that she wanted to contribute to change, and supported by both her mother and father, she became a change-maker.

I invite you to read this book and learn about Portia’s childhood and the dreamer that she was.

My goal is to inspire children, especially those from humble beginnings, so they know that regardless of their circumstances, like Portia, they can dream and aspire and become Prime Minister one day.

For further information, please contact:

Lincoln Robinson

PSM Foundation Book Project Coordinator

Email: lincrob55@gmail.com

Tel: 876 833 0403

https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/art-leisure/20211212/portia-dreams-book-mama-ps-childhood-years