GEORGE CAMPBELL, renowned Jamaican poet - Panamanian by birth, Jamaican by identity, militant by inclination - died in his sleep at age 85 in New York City on November 20, 2002, after a long illness.
Born George Constantine Campbell Boyd on December 26, 1916 in Colon, Panama, Campbell lived for four years on and off the San Blas Islands, Cuna Cuna Indian Territory, where his father, a former Jamaican civil servant, was a Panama supervisor. They then lived in Cartagena, Columbia, Costa Rica and Panama before his mother, 'Nurse' Miriam Campbell (nee Boyd), brought him to Jamaica at age five.
Edna Manley, a sculptor-artist and family friend, discovered his poetry when George Campbell was still in his teens.
Campbell's protest poetry was released mainly as part of Jamaica's struggle for Independence from England. With collaboration of the author, First Poems was collected and published in 1945 by Edna Manley. It was widely acclaimed as a "landmark," breaking completely from the Victorian conventions of colonial West Indian poetry. The Rt. Excellent Norman Washington Manley, the co-founder of the Jamaica nation, dubbed Campbell "Poet of the Revolution." The influence of First Poems has long persisted and Campbell became a legend in his time. The book's potent blend of traditional religious motifs, radical politics and racial pride served as a model for the next generation of West Indian poets. For them, Campbell's words became as familiar as the poems of Wordsworth, Keats and Shelly had been to an earlier generation. Langston Hughes used Campbell's poem Litany in Poetry of the Negro. Manley, a former Rhodes Scholar, Queen's Counsel and Premier, often quoted the poet publicly. He ended his last official foreign address with Campbell's racial integration poem, When I Pray, which Manley felt only William Blake could have written as well. Litany inspired the symbol for the first Carifesta held in Guyana in 1972: a brown hand holding up a golden sun. It was used for all Carifesta-related banners, souvenirs and crafts, as well as a postage stamp issued by Guyana to commemorate the event.
In 1980, Campbell represented Jamaica in Havana, Cuba, as one of 44 intellectuals judging in the Premo Casa de las Americas.
Campbell's poetry has been published in numerous anthologies and textbooks in Jamaica and around the world. In the US, Campbell's poem Holy was included in the 1994 anthology A Grateful Heart: Daily Blessings for the Evening Meal from Buddha to the Beatles. Litany will also appear in The Bridge of Stars, an anthology that is scheduled to be published in Germany, Holland, the UK and US.
Campbell graduated from St George's College, a Jesuit-run school in Kingston. In 1945, he migrated to New York City where he attended The Dramatic Workshop of the New School of Social Research. There he worked with Irwin Piscator, former head of the German National Theatre, who had fled Nazi Germany. He also attended the Katherine Dunham School of Dance. Before leaving Jamaica, he worked as a journalist and critic at The Daily Gleaner and Public Opinion. In addition, he edited the Welfare Reporter, The Sun and contributed to Focus, a literary publication co-founded with Edna Manley. He was a librettist for an opera by Salvador Ley, former head of Guatemala's Conservatory of Music. Ley and other composers set many of Campbell's poems to music. Several were used in Carnegie Hall's Pan-American Concerts in America and they were performed in England at the Royal Albert Hall in 1978. In March 2002, in a concert celebrating "Artists of the Americas," the New York Treble Singers performed four of Campbell's poems set to music by American choral conductor-composer Gregg Smith. Campbell participated in the pre-concert composer talk/interview. Cuban conductor-composer Tania Leon, also honoured in that same programme, is presently setting several Campbell poems to music for youth choral performances.
Campbell produced one dramatic work, A Play Without Scenery, and was co-secretary of the Little Theatre Movement in Jamaica. He also wrote a number of unpublished novels. His poem Negro Aroused inspired Edna Manley's sculpture of the same name. Pulitzer Prize winner Derek Walcott wrote of Campbell, "this hand was the first to stroke the beauty of ebony", in the 1981 Yale University (Garland Press) edition of First Poems. Earth Testament, a collection of new poems by Campbell and illustrated by Edna Manley, was published in Jamaica in 1982. At that time, Campbell consulted on publications for The Institute of Jamaica and the People's National Party Archives. He was collaborating with Edna Manley on a book about Jamaican art when she died in 1987. Campbell returned to live in New York City in 1994. In 1948 Campbell married Jamaican musician Odilia Campbell (nee Orane, d.1997) who for 25 years was staff pianist for The Dance Theatre of Harlem. He is survived by three daughters, Christine, Marion and Maureen, (a fourth daughter, Edna, died in 1986), two sons-in-law, six grandchildren, his sister Ana Bush, and a host of nieces, nephews, cousins, colleagues and friends.
A memorial for George Campbell was held on Saturday, December 7, 2002 at St. Mary's Episcopal Church, 521 West 126th Street in Harlem, New York. Mr. Campbell's ashes will be returned to his beloved homeland as he desired. Future arrangements for a celebration of his life to be held in Kingston will be announced at a later date.
LITANY
By George Campbell
I hold the splendid daylight
in my hands
Inwardly grateful for a
lovely day.
Thank you life.
Daylight like a fine fan
spread from my hands
Daylight like scarlet poinsettia
Daylight like yellow
cassia flowers
Daylight like clean water
Daylight like green cacti
Daylight like sea sparkling
with white horses
Daylight like sunstrained
blue sky
Daylight like tropic hills
Daylight like a sacrament
in my hands.
Amen.
