By Mel Cooke, Freelance WriterWESTERN BUREAU:
RAYMOND MAIR put exceptional wit, a keen sense of history and sheer writing ability into wonderfully non-self-serving reading as he launched These Days I Celebrate on Sunday morning.
The round of the University of the West Indies' (UWI) Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts was packed with poetry lovers, poets, well-wishers and a sprinkling of children, who came to help the 39-poem volume off to a good start. They were treated not only the poetry, but historical titbits which only a man who has been there could provide.
The peeks into the past were served up with quips that in turn served up the effortless humour which characterised Mr. Mair's presentation.
GENESIS OF POEM
Before reading 'Tribute To Don Drummond', Raymond Mair spoke about the genesis of the poem, which was around a particular meeting with the legendary trombonist.
"I was going east on a mission," he said, as the capacity audience chuckled. On this 'mission', he took the bus to Cross Roads and "Who do I see writing on the pavement but Don Drummond? We had a wonderful chat," Mr. Mair recalled, then he went on his way.
When he returned, Don Drummond was still at the spot. So they went across the road to 'Down the Hole' and had a long chat. "I walked home the buses had long gone. As I walked home I wrote this one in my head and it is largely what he said," Mr. Mair said, going on to read a poem from the Mighty Don's perspective which concluded:
You don't understand my longing/You don't feel my song/I am singing/Brother'Singing/But you don't understand
Mr. Mair abandoned wonderful percussive and guitar accompaniment by musicians, including M'Bala and Calvin Mitchell, to do Carnival Lymers (it is because we remember these things/these passions shared, that we meet and greet/each other, forever young). Alternating his use of music, Mr. Mair went on to read 'Me One In The Crowd Again', during which there was a disturbance when a child got a bit loud. Without comment he simply stopped and when the adult responsible for the tyke had done the necessaries, he picked up where he had left off.
"So we ride de riddim again!" Raymond Mair said as he neared the end of the reading. "We close with a show-stopper," he said, which turned out to be 'HIM Come', about the visit of Haile Selassie to Jamaica, as the musicians laid down Nyahbinghi style rhythms.
The literature lovers had not had enough, though, and Mr. Mair was recalled to the lectern and read 'The Legacy', about a particular moment in his contact with Derek Walcott (and from your surplus/of words immortalised me with, 'I'm a Trinidadian too/I strutted on the stage and gave the world that line/but kept it too, as my gift from you). Mr. Mair wrapped up his reading with Grand Piano (Marcus Kretzer Recital 28th April 2002).
Copies of These Days I Celebrate were handed over to chief librarian at the UWI's Mona campus, Stephanie Ferguson, as well as literary luminaries Mervyn Morris, Wayne Brown and Edward Baugh.
