Ras Rod performing his poetry at the taping of the 'History of Jamaican Poetry' CD at the School of Drama in St Andrew last week.
-File photoAmina Blackwood Meeks
, Contributor
CORNWALL COLLEGE held its annual prize-giving exercise on Thursday, November 27.
One outstanding feature of the event was the principal's report. It began with the achievements in the areas usually referred to as extracurricular.
Wendell Taylor was a picture of pride as he recounted the participation and accomplishments of his boys in the festival competitions of the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC).
He was a man who had clearly moved with the times and in many ways moved ahead of the times to a real practical understanding of the value of the arts in creating the kinds of human beings who valued team-work, discipline etc. More so, because here was a boys school reaching excellence in speech performances, music and other softer areas which we are so often told boys wish to avoid.
They had done reasonably well in sports too, and he made it clear that he wished they had done better.
At the same time, he also made it clear that any boy with a hint of talent in the arts or sports could find a place at Cornwall, because he had seen with his own eyes how these could be used to transform the lives of individuals, to motivate them to accomplish in other areas and to lay the ground work for their confident self-sufficiency upon graduating from high school.
This is the kind of the result the Division of Culture in the Ministry of Education Youth and Culture must be looking for out of its Culture in Education Programme.
The programme goes beyond a teaching of the performing arts to a use of the performing arts and the culture of Jamaica in content delivery of the curriculum.
One of the questions frequently asked of such an approach comes with a great deal of doubt and scepticism as to whether participants in such a programme could find any meaningful outlets for and, critically for those who measure every accomplishment in terms of dollars and sense, derive any economic benefits from such training.
BOOK LAUNCH
The week was full of answers to this and related enquiries. The very evening of the Cornwall prizegiving, another man from out west was in Kingston launching his seventh children's book to be published by Macmillan.
Full Circle by C. Everard Palmer, son of Kendal in Hanover, was being launched by Kingston Bookshop and McMillan Publishers.
It was a celebration of the rich cultural heritage which produces greatness and inspires those who are the direct beneficiaries of that legacy to commit it to paper such that others may be enriched by sharing in the mere pleasure of it and be motivated by it. It was also a celebration of the power of the word to go beyond simply providing information, to inspire and help build integrity.
This reminder from Dr. Alfred Sangster, who was guest speaker at the launch.
The night before that Red Bones the Blues Café had hosted a celebration of the word in the form of its third annual literary competition in which it offered monetary incentives to the winners and facilitated participants meeting and learning from such great Jamaican achievers in the literary and performer arts in the persons of Trevor Rhone and Yvonne Brewster who numbered among the panel of judges.
On Tuesday, persons had gathered to participate in the breaking of bread, another great Jamaican cultural tradition, at the opening of Popeyes Chicken and SeaFood.
It is hard to displease a Jamaican on any occasion where bread is broken, especially if it is enhanced with a likkle salt butter.
But the feast went beyond that which was pleasing to the palette to include that which entered it through the ear. Music and the spoken word. There was genuine enjoyment of the stories and the old time Jamaica story-songs that were obviously planned as an integral part of, not an adjunct to the occasion.
At the same time the Poetry Society of Jamaica was delivering another feast of the works of and presentations by the poets whose vision manifested the society some 14 years ago and the young poets who now find in it an outlet and audience for their work.
Monday night, the CPTC was busy recording another part of the series Lyrically Speaking, featuring a wide range of established and up-coming Jamaican poets, from Mutabaruka to Neto Meeks, and scheduled for release early in 2004.
On Sunday, November 23, persons had come from as far away as Westmoreland, Portland, St. Catherine, Kingston and beyond to share in a day of story telling in St. Mary in spite of the rain and mud and the non-existent road that led to the venue.
COLLECTIVE WELL-BEING
My own suspicion is that much of this went on during the week under the review.
My own suspicion is that much of this than is brought to public attention happens throughout Jamaica. And it is good.
Imagine that these initiatives produced for the world more Trevor Rhones, Yvonne Brewsters, Mutaburukas. I think we have already produced them. Releasing them to the world is the challenge.
Imagine that they are facilitated to feed themselves and their families through the financial rewards from the spoken word.
Imagine that their work becomes one of the corner stones of cultural tourism. There, that's good.
There is the challenge! How do we find the courage to find the means to support a vision of what's good for all of us before someone else globalises it, before record companies and talk labels lure away our brightest and best and leave us with only their names in critiques and reviews or the images on the big screen.
Or worse, before they grow old in poverty and we reward them with words that remind of how brilliant they use to be or could have been sometime, if only.
