Tanya Batson-Savage, Freelance Writer
Thomas Glave - CONTRIBUTED
THE REDBONES Blues Café, New Kingston, seems to have become the unofficial home of book launches or for all things literary. So on Tuesday night, it was once again home to another book launch - that of Thomas Glave's collection of essays Words To Our Now: Imagination And Dissent.
According to the homophobic reputation which Jamaica has gained in the international media, it would seem that the launch ought not to have taken place - at least, not without an angry machete and fire-wielding mob outside.
AN UNAPOLOGETIC STANCE
The mob would not be necessary because of any opposition to Glave's profession as an assistant professor of English at SUNY Binghamton, or because he is an eloquent writer with a gift for lyrical prose. Rather, it would be in response to the writer's unapologetic stance as a homosexual and his political agitation, as expressed in his writing, for the acceptance of his lifestyle.
"I really admire the commitment that Thomas has given to getting his country to be more accepting of him," said Professor Carolyn Cooper, who hosted the launch, which was co-sponsored by the Reggae Studies Unit and the Department of Literatures in English at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona campus.
ADVENTUROUS WRITING
Jean Small, who introduced the author, pointed to the praise Glave's work had received as well as his other accomplishments. She described him as highly intelligent, intellectual and adventurous in his writing. "Words To Our Now is the work of a revolutionary mind," she said.
"This is the most important, the most deeply felt reading that I've done," said Glave, when he came to the stage. The author is born in Bronx, New York, but is of Jamaican descent.
He read three pieces: 'Panic, Despair: When the Words Do Not Come (But Then the Unexpected Journey)', and two segments of 'Between Jamaica(n)' and '(North) America(n) Convergent (Divergent) Territories'.
The first presented an intriguing look at terror, robbing it of some of its 'us/them' hypocrisy. The second essay explored Glave's identity as a black, gay Jamaican-American and what that means for his positioning, given the history of prejudices in both spaces.
LOCKS AS A TOOL FOR MASKING
Written as an autobiography, though in the third person, the essay explores Glave's coming to manhood torn between two worlds where 'his kind of people' risk death whether because of his colour or his sexual preferences.
Furthermore, the segment 'Hair' provided an intriguing discussion as it looked at his locks. It presented the locks as a tool for masking, acting as a shield against anti-homosexual slurs and suspicions, but simultaneously invoking the prejudices of the upper-class Jamaica from which he comes.
The collection comprises 17 essays and is published by the University of Minnesota Press. It is Glave's second publication, as he previously authored Whose Song? And Other Stories.
