From several reports and in terms of some of the objectives we achieved, it would be fair to say that the recently held Bim Literary Festival And Book Fair was successful.
As a small group of writers with hardly any resources other than persistent faith, Writers Ink organized an event that saw some of our greatest literary and intellectual figures gathered in one place with one purpose in mind: to make their individual contribution to the first ever such festival held in Barbados.
Since the organizing committee felt that the first Lifetime Achievement Awards should honour Barbadian writers, George Lamming, Kamau Brathwaite and Austin “Tom” Clarke were the recipients. For me, as I believe for several others at the opening ceremony, this was a sobering moment. Here was the old guard who in the 1930s were presumptuous enough to believe that they could be writers, when such a vocation was considered to belong only to the European and to the Caucasian.
Even more unfortunate, but perhaps predictable, was the fact that the Caribbean itself was resistant to the idea of any writing called its own. To become a writer, therefore, was to accept a condition of self-imposed exile: Lamming to England, Brathwaite, first to England, then Africa and the United States, and Clarke to Canada.
Privileged
Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott was in the audience as well on opening night. We felt privileged to have a master class conducted by this highly-renowned poet, and to listen to his readings and his responses when he was interviewed by Kwame Dawes.
Our Barbadian poet laureate Brathwaite could not be with us physically. His work was, however, represented by me and was featured along with Clarke’s and Lamming’s in the cultural presentation directed by Cicely Spencer-Cross.
Now, where do we go from here? The results of the workshops, readings and the Cuba seminar may be best measured in the medium to long term. But there are questions for us to ponder in the meanwhile.
How effectively are we nurturing the other generations of writers in Barbados? What are the opportunities for publishing? Are policy-makers serious about the importance of the literary arts or do writers still have to go abroad for their work to be taken seriously? How do we writers see our role in the society?
It is important that all the questions above be dealt with, but for the purposes of this article, I’ll address the last that has been a point of ongoing debate: does the writer have a responsibility to his or her society?
It is noteworthy that the poet and prophet were once considered to be one and the same. In the Old Testament of the Bible, for example, the prophet’s vision was often referred to as his “burden”, since it was his painful duty to see and hear what the rest of the society either could not, or chose to ignore. In other words, it was the poet-prophet’s responsibility to reveal the society to itself.
The views of one of our greatest Barbadian writers on the subject of the writer’s responsibility are well documented. In his essay The Politics Of Lamming-tations: Exploring The Relationship Between The Political And The Aesthetic, Dr Linden Lewis quotes Sandra Pouchet Paquet on Lamming’s work: “He writes out of an acute social consciousness that is vitally concerned with politics and society, that is, with the function of power in a given society, and its effects on the moral, social, cultural and even aesthetic values of the people in that society.” (Bim: Arts For The 21st Century, Special Edition, 2007.)
In addition, both Brathwaite and Walcott have been acutely critical in their writings of their respective society’s failures and shortcomings. The title of Clarke’s novel, Growing Up Stupid Under The Union Jack, is self-explanatory.
Given all the above, one will argue, however, that it is neither fair nor perhaps even truly possible to dictate another writer’s choice of subject matter; the creative imagination will find its own path.
In any case, there may be no such thing as private writing since no personal experience is ever unique to ourselves.
Ultimately, writers must struggle to come to terms with themselves and the world in which they live. How each writer does this is not only his or her personal choice, but requires a sense of social responsibility as well.
• Esther Phillips is head of the Division of Liberal Arts of the Barbados Community College. She is also a poet and editor of BIM: Arts For The 21st Century. Email [email protected]
