When I entered the GHS I was one of three girls from my primary school to do this. I could remember the elation upon hearing the news that I had placed 44^th in that year’s Common Entrance Exam.  In my first form I met some pretty interesting characters. I was also placed in Moffet House which, at the time, was enjoying a seemingly never ending stint at the bottom of the GHS sporting tables. Here I was, doe-eyed to the institution, learning French and trying my best to get my folks at home to speak it with me, trying to impress my needlework teacher, balancing school work with the trials of adolescence in an institution that was determined to make a “lady” out of me:

Young ladies do not walk in the street while eating. Young ladies do not make such a ruckus while on the street and especially while in uniform. Young ladies are not to be seen on the street after certain hours in uniform.  Young ladies are only to wear small hooped earrings (if it’s bigger than your pinkie finger then it’s too big). Young ladies are only to wear plain studs in their ears, no fancy jewelry.  Young ladies are to walk single file along narrow stairways and sidewalks and young ladies must never, ever, walk on the GHS lawn.  (I am hearing the voices of Mrs. Jeanne Horne and Mrs. Ercelle Thomas as I type these last two.)

In addition to the ‘finer qualities’ of womanhood, the GHS instilled in me a sense of academic pride.  Hearing your name read out loud during mark reading as having placed in the top three of your class was motivation for me to excel in academics once I had advanced to the higher forms. I was also motivated by a desire to become a female Perry Mason and a female MacGyver at the same time. These goals spurred me on. As it stands I am neither a female Perry Mason nor MacGyver, instead, I found that my calling is to teach, to disseminate the knowledge I have obtained to those that do not have it.  This is something I am proud of and it is a journey I embarked upon thanks to a gentle nudge from the late Sister Pat of the St. Joseph’s Convent Marriaqua, my first employer, and the love and support of my parents.

While I was more than competent with my academics the other aspects of my life at the GHS were not so straight forward. I had wandered into an institution that had some unwritten rules as well as the written ones you get on orientation day. There was a sense in which the Old Girls’ School had transmitted a hierarchy that it had inherited from colonial days. The children whose parents had been previously attached to the school were aware of this and then there were those, like me, who were not. Not being aware of these unwritten rules meant that I was uninhibited by them, I would speak my mind as I saw it, calling a spade a spade. That last bit often saw me at loggerheads with those who were aware of these unwritten rules.  My days as a student of my old primary school had already shaped a distinct personality who was fierce in her defense of her identity.  I was (and still am) very bookish. Former GHS librarians could attest to this. Plus I had acquired a different taste in music,  something I had inherited from my parents.  I came to the GHS with a strong sense of self, which often meant that I was not a “follow the crowd teenager.” It also meant more loggerheads, to put it lightly. Thus while many look back on their GHS days in happy nostalgia, I mostly remember how difficult it was to remain an individual with a different world sense.

After returning to St. Vincent from the UWI I found that my view of the GHS had undergone a significant change. I realized that I had spent 5 of my formative years in that institution yet I knew very little about what it meant to be “Vincentian.” This was very important to me as a student confronted with inter-island campus politics while at the UWI. I found that I had to pause and take stock of my Vincentian-ness while my colleagues from other islands were able to rattle off their respective “nesses.” I could rattle off the names of the great West Indian authors, the works of whom I was studied at the GHS, and others I met at the UWI. But I couldn’t say with certainty, who were the Vincentian authors and what was the names of their works. I found that I knew more about the traditions and customs of other territories than my own.  I had to look again at the GHS.  What a great opportunity this school has had for instilling a strong sense of Vincentian identity over the past 100 years? What better time to cement a national spirit that allows for us to move forward in the world with a strong sense of St. Vincent and the Grenadines-ness?

I began looking, in awe, at my Alma Mater for her power in shaping our lives and identity and realized how colossally underused she really was and still is, frankly. In academics she is strongest there is no doubt about that, and she has challenged and broken certain precepts which had placed restrictions on a girl’s education. However, more and more I am beginning to appreciate how she needs to evolve to face the challenges that her wards will encounter in these changing times.

Firstly, while my Alma Mater has enabled many young women to become independent in that they are more than capable of gaining and keeping various forms of employment, she can go a step further in enabling their self reliance. Traditionally, girls have been expected to learn and master the various aspects of domesticity namely cooking, cleaning, and sewing. In addition to the more academic subject areas, Alma Mater has offered courses such as Food and Nutrition, as well as Clothing and Textiles. I remember at one point that girls in 2 Crick and Connell were given the opportunity to learn metal works, making baking tins/pans among other items. These subject areas are very consistent with the traditional belief that a woman’s place is in the home. In these traditional homes, the roles are clearly divided along gender lines with the domain of the husband being more related to physical duties such as carpentry, masonry, plumbing, automobile repair and electrical repair.  Thus, it would seem, that our Amla Mater, despite her evolution, still retains vestiges of her past with regards to her original purpose, i.e., to turn girls into good wives and mothers.

Let me be clear, I am not one to frown upon girls (or boys) learning what I would call life skills that will no doubt aid them in their future. However, I am aware of the fact that times have evolved. Many of our girls will end up having to manage homes as single parents. That is a reality that we cannot escape. Thus introducing them to life skills outside those traditionally ascribed to women would further strengthen their future independence. Alongside academics and treated with respect and not as fall back subject areas, these subject areas would afford our girls with skills that would make them both more marketable (a point I will develop shortly) and truly independent as their list of options for career paths increases.

To understand the point made previously about the ‘marketability’, we need to consider that we are currently in an age where the Caribbean has been inching closer and closer towards a Single Market and Economy, or CSME. The signing of the revised Treaty of Chaguaramas has afforded citizens of the signatory states the right and opportunity to seek employment, provide services, and the right to move capital to establish their businesses in any member state, from Jamaica in the north to Suriname in the south. A quick look at the employment listings on various online Caribbean employment network sites would reveal a demand for skilled personnel in various fields. A citizen of St. Vincent and the Grenadines need only become qualified in a particular field, with a particular skill to be eligible for any of the many job opportunities that are becoming more and more available under  CSME. It would make sense therefore, to assist our girls in becoming truly well rounded individuals by exposing them to a wide range of skills during their formative years, in addition to the already expanded academic curriculum. With these skills our girls would have a greater chance of capitalizing on regional opportunities.

An equally important point would be to enable our students to make direct contributions to the growth of our economy, not as employees, but as innovators. We are a nation that has historically depended on agriculture. Admittedly, within recent years, the shift has been away from agriculture, the wisdom of which is yet to be seen, frankly. In a country with limited resources it is prudent to ensure maximum productivity from our main resource. In my view St. Vincent and the Grenadines has two such resources –the rich agricultural lands and our people.  Statistically, the ‘brightest minds’ pass through Girls’ High School. Yet, the Girls’ High School has not and does not offer any classes in Agricultural Science. This subject is largely reserved for rural schools. Again, I have to question the philosophy/wisdom behind not exposing our students to a subject area that directly covers the main income earning sector of our country.

There are many benefits to be gained from exposing our students to Agricultural Science. Firstly, it may lead to more resources being poured into development of farming techniques, the chemistry and biology of Agriculture. It may lead to the development/designing of farming equipment that would decrease labor and increase yield, which would lead to the reduction of cost and then cause our produce to be more competitive on the markets locally, regionally, and internationally.

Secondly, exposing more of our students to Agricultural Science may lead to innovations in Agro-processing, and eventually, more home based production. It may lead to more local products being harnessed and utilized in their fullest potential and more economically efficient product production.

Thirdly, with more of our students taking Agricultural Science, it may eventually lead to a nation that it more food independent and secure. This point is especially important when we consider the recent events with regards to the world food crisis that saw a dramatic increase in the cost of many imported food products. Agricultural Science will endow our students with specific skill that will allow them/us to be more food independent and food secure.

I realize that most of the ideas that I have put forward may seem farfetched, far off and even a bit idealistic. I know that world trends and experts may say that agriculture is dead or dying and that small economies may be better served by becoming more service oriented, tourism, off shore finance and the like. I have heard the arguments; nevertheless I see that the key to development of any nation is to be self-sustaining. The key to self-sustenance is making the most of your resources. Frankly speaking, Agriculture and Vincentians remain under-utilized resources in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The way to rectify this is to expand our notion of education to see it as key to the survival of the nation in the long term. The way to rectify this is to re-examine the role that agriculture plays/ has played in our nation’s development and find more ways develop our agriculture.

The way to rectify this is to examine our ides of agriculture. We need to look at agriculture not as the labor for the less academically capable, or for the lower classes. Rather, we need to see it for its truest potential and then invest ourselves, wholeheartedly, into the realization of this potential.

I realize that many of the people reading this article might think that the type of economic transformation that I am suggesting will not happen overnight and may indeed be quite some time before they are realized. This is a sentiment that I appreciate, but consider this –we are nation of 31 years and thirty years is a very small number of years in terms nationhood, especially when you consider our history. If we start to comprehensively and consistently implement these changes, with specific long term goals in mind, the benefits will no doubt emerge.

To return to my Alma Mater, the best place to start changing these attitudes is within our schools. My Alma Mater has a greater role play in the development of the many girls that pass through her halls, as well as our nation.  Close examination of what more she can contribute is especially desirable and pertinent at this her 100^th year of existence. She is older by far than our nation. She is our grandmother, our mother, our big sister. She has done well over the 100 years, but let her not rest on her laurels while the world and our nation change around her.

So here’s wishing one and all a wonderful and creative new year, filled with many blessings and opportunities for happiness. I will be back.

“D”

I have been busy for a bit, but I will be back. I am working on several ideas for posts as well as my academic work. You’ll be the first to know when I return. Until then, ignore the rumors of my demise. They have been greatly exaggerated. Peace

But to return to the question of canon, there remain veritable black holes, spaces of dark matter that speckle the body of Caribbean Literature. These dark spaces take years to form and are assisted in various ways by the people I would call the Keepers of the Canon. They do not give themselves this title, their utterances are given credence and relevance by Scribes. These utterances are then frozen in time as document or testimony to the state of Caribbean literature. Where are they to be found?  Around literary magazines and journals, University literature programs and book competitions and more recently on the web.

This, of course, is not unique to Caribbean literary scenes. Every literary location has had its share of Scribes and Keepers, or as Deleuze and Guattari would describe them, the Priests of Knowledge.

On one hand I understand and appreciate the role of the Scribes and Keepers of our literary spaces. The desire to name, place and categorize the thing may be predicated on a desire to cement its legitimacy on the world stage, to order it for posterity and to highlight and celebrate the creative imagination of writers from the region.

On the other hand I also see how they can equally maim the body of literary work. For instance, perusing various lists of Caribbean Literature you would rarely see works from St. Vincent and the Grenadines. This may be for several reasons, but not for lack of publications by Vincentian authors. There are works published locally and internationally by Vincentian authors that do not grace the lists of Caribbean authored texts.

One reason for the omission may be related to the question of preference of the Scribes and Keepers. Some critics of Caribbean Literature, depending on the school of thought to which they belong, their preferences for topics and messages, and whether or not they count self-publishing as a legitimate means of publishing, may seek to include the texts that meet their idea of good Caribbean Literature and, in so doing, may exclude others.

What happens, then , when the uninitiated, in a quest to learn about Caribbean Literature or read texts from Caribbean authors, is given a list that reflects the approval of Scribes and Keepers? She/he may conclude that there aren’t any Vincentian authors, or that there aren’t any of merit.

This also raises questions of continuity on a more personal note. I waver between being an academic/literary critic and an author, I am at that particular crossroad. As part of my training, and passion, I have read a great deal of Caribbean authored texts in all three genres as well as African and African American authored works. When I write some of what I would have read bleeds into my work. I then have to wonder if these are my ideas or the resonances of the works I have read. How much of it is authentic? Are the themes and concerns that have been identified as par for the course of Caribbean Literature germane to Vincentian literature? If the answer to this is no does it mean, then, that whenever I include these themes in my work, I am am inauthentic to my ‘national’ tradition?

Needless to say when it comes to Vincentian authorship, anxiety rears its head as I feel as though I am writing in a vacuum. How can the work of a writer/writers from a particular nation develop without the connections to her/their predecessors?

I have undertaken a mission of sorts to find these authors, with varying degrees of success. But this is only my personal mission. I feel that the Scribes and Keepers of the Canon have a great responsibility to a younger generation of readers and writers from the region to make their lists as representative as possible of the entire region.  It may seem like a political thing to do, but I am hard-pressed to believe that Caribbean Literature only emerges from certain locations and only focuses on certain topics.

Until such time as these inclusions are made, I have begun compiling a list of Vincentian authors that I will publish in subsequent posts. I have linked to some titles and info on a few authors below:

Peggy Carr

Cecil Browne

Ellsworth ‘Shake’ Keane

H. Nigel Thomas

I should mention that this post was triggered by Brendan deCaires’ expression of his experiences of judging the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for this year. He made some interesting points, detailing how grueling and often uninspiring the process was for him. However, what piqued my interest the most were his observations at the end of the article where he more or less states that Caribbean authors, when compared with Canadian authors, take themselves  too seriously. They have too much angst and while Canadians do not. Even as I write it I am cringing. Can all of Canada’s literature be summarized like that? I am not an expert on Canadian Literature but I feel I wouldn’t make such a comparison.  Different geo-cultural and and political contexts breed different forms of expression and subjects of interest. There, by implication, I have said it. I am not a fan of judging books in a competition.

To tie de Caires’ comments into my post, we can tell that I am already too full of angst. But until I see more recognition of Vincentian writers, in the body of work called Caribbean Literature, then call me Ms. Angsty.

agreeable afternoon,

Debbie fiddles with

the ends of her hair

while speaking to

young male contender,

cleavage flutters as

she titters at seasoned

bids at humor…

“…that shade of tangerine goes

well with the hues on your cheeks

and the pink glimpses of flesh I

get in the space between your teeth…”

…Little Verne

clings to her latest

Terry Pratchett myth,

loving quips from

unassuming Death,

wishing she was Angua,

werewolf sleuth,

I could smell the lie he’s about to tell

Before he even says it!

Or maybe even

the Dark Knight

see how I slip this

bug quickly  under his collar?

Deborah, nodding in perfect politeness,
Stuns him with alternative view points

To the one he cherishes the most,

His own of course and, dare I say it,

Inspires awe and hatred all in the same go.

(The fish is good, we should eat here

More often, shouldn’t taste as bitter

With better company.)

©2006 Debra Providence

The novel foregrounds the daily uncertainties and horrors of slavery in the 18th century Montpelier estate of Jamaica. The workings of Montpelier reach the audience through a mostly first person narrator, whose Jamaican creole cadence is initially successful in creating an illusion of an authentic firsthand account of the events. The narrator throws it out for the reader with an opening scene that details the birth of the main character, Lilith, whose 13year old mother dies in delivery: “black legs spread wide…a weak womb done kill one life to birth another. A black baby wiggling in blood on the floor with skin darker than midnight and greenest eyes anybody ever done see. I goin’ call her Lilith. You can call her what they call her.” Such an opening paragraph serves to shock the reader into the reality of Montpelier. There are no innocents and there is no room for niceties. The baby with the dark skin and green eyes has unwittingly killed her mother, and her birth is greeted with fear by the women witnesses.

James presents the green eyes as having some significance in that they are the mark of her white father Wilkins, the overseer of the estate, and she would grow to learn of the other women with dark skin and green eyes who were also sired by Wilkins. The Book of Night Women in essence is this, a chronicle of a rebellion plot on Jamaica with conspirators in groups of six, forming a matrix of conspirators amongst the estates on Jamaica. James focuses on the women of Montpelier, who are instrumental in strategizing and executing the details of the plot that lead to the bloody rebellion that takes place near the end of the text. These women, most of them, are the daughters of Wilkins. Marked with the green eyes, each of them has learnt how to read, and each of them has a talent (pistol wielding, knife throwing, knowledge of Myal and Obeah) that she brings to the plotting when they congregate under the cover of night in a secret cave. These women, led by the indomitable Homer, are convinced that they are the only ones who could follow through with the rebellion on Montpelier as the men are weak-willed. I must admit however, that apart from marking them as the daughters of the overseer, I am not sure that the ‘green eyes’ trope was really essential to propelling the plot. The leader, Homer, did not possess the green eyes and was nonetheless instrumental, as well as some other slaves, and there is no indication that the plotters on the other plantations had such a distinguishing feature. I would venture to say that the women were in possession of other traits that cemented their usefulness to the rebellion that didn’t hinge on their green-eyed link to their white father.

Speaking of a slave woman named ‘Homer’, the naming of the slaves in the novel is note-worthy. Wilkins has a penchant for naming his slaves after icons from Greek mythos namely Andromeda, Circe, Hippolyta, Gorgon, Cronos, Bacchus, Atlas, Pallas, Homer and Lilith. It underscores his ironic understanding of the positions the slaves of Montpelier in relation to their names. He has the power to erase their historical identities in relation to Africa, and supplant their original names with the names of Greek gods and demigods.

Wilkins’ relationship with the slaves, especially the ones he fathered, exemplifies the complex relationships that emerged between slave and master. Indeed the masters or the whites of the plantations of  Montpelier, Coulibre and Kingston seek to maintain the line between themselves and slaves through the whip and the gun, but, as James’ text suggests, this line is often undermined by the intimate knowledge that the slaves would have obtained through being in close contact with the masters. The slaves experience the base desires of the masters’ hearts. The masters often desperately cling to fading European pleasantries and customs, hoping to stave off the heat of the space they share with the slaves.

James manages to foreground a feminine perspective and weaves a tale full of brutality, fire, pain and suffering that gripped me into turning the pages. In fact, while reading the novel, there were moments when the women simultaneously inspired awe and fear in me.

However, there were also moments when I became equally frustrated as I felt that the novel was not satisfying in its delivery. Indeed, I felt that the novel often teased me with glimmers of deft story telling only to disappoint.

The use of the first person narrative voice, while deployed to lend credence to the tale, stumbles at key moments.  The first major pitfall occurs where the narrator’s story had to be complemented by the recount of Overseer Quinn’s spy-mission into Kingston.  He follows Miss Isobel, the fiancée of his employer and good friend Master Humphrey, to uncover the secrets behind her nightly journeys into the city. The insertion of Quinn’s tale and his voice jars at this point. The first person narration, up to now, was the only voice in the novel and it had not been previously substituted. The insertion at that particular point is recognition, perhaps, that the first person narrative technique was not strong enough to propel the novel through particular plot maneuvers.

The other major pitfall was that the narrative voice did not belong to the central character herself. Instead, as we learn at the end of the novel, the narrator is Lilith’s daughter via her “relationship” with Quinn. The use of Lilith’s daughter’s first person narration in effect removes the reader from the inner workings of Lilith’s minds. While reading the text, I felt that the narrator was not, or maybe could not, dredge deeper into Lilith’s inner workings, not enough to make her a sympathetic character and certainly not enough to understand her rebellion against the Night Women, who were plotting freedom for all slaves, or her love  for Master Humphrey and then for Master Quinn. Indeed, even while reading of the atrocities meted out to the women of the Coulibre and Montpelier estates, I came away feeling as though their situation was being relayed through a perspective twice removed from their individual pain. As a result, the Night Women’s tales of woes, at the hands of their masters and fellow slaves, read like the tales of suffering from other slave narratives and works of fiction which have focused on slavery in the West Indies and North America. Frederick Douglass, Ashton Warner and Mary Prince come to mind, so too do Jean Rhys’  Wide Sargasso Sea, Alex Haley’s Queen, Toni Morrison’s  Beloved and, more recently Nalo Hopkinson’s The Salt Roads. His portrayal of these women did not venture far beyond particular tropes within slavery based narratives: the noble slave, the savage slave, the long suffering slave woman, the brutal master and overseer, the house slave, the mad or corrupted creole woman and  the mad slave mistress.

This leads then to the question of audience. To a regular reader of Caribbean literature and student of Caribbean History, Marlon James’ novel did not really deviate from the script. His work is sprinkled with slight variations of the mentioned types. I found that they seldom however, rose above their type to make fundamental contact.

The last point then leads me to conclude that perhaps James is targeting a different type of audience, that he seeks to lay bare the atrocities of slavery to an audience that has not been exposed enough to this aspect of human history. This is especially important considering recent passage of laws of a particular United State banning the teaching of ethnic studies in public schools and the more recent attempts by a board of education in another state to remove words from their history lessons which refer to slavery and the slave trade. The implications of such tactics for future generations are grave.

I can imagine a scenario ten or so years in the future where a teenager, who has gone through a system of education that did not teach her of  the horrors of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, is arrested by the disquieting stare of a half-clad loam colored woman on the jacket of The Book of Night Women. I can see her as she picks up the novel, and is entrapped by its lush paratext. I can see as she journeys into the world of 18th century slave colony Jamaica. I can imagine what such a journey can do to the unexposed mind, adjusting her hitherto innocent world sense, causing her to examine the nature of human beings. I can see her being moved by the reading of this novel to search for similar novels. I can see her world sense changing.

It is in such a scenario, then, The Book of Night Women will have served an important purpose, which may, in the end redeem it in the face of its short-comings.

©2010 Debra Providence

I wandered into a Dark Room

and sat on a lonely stool.

I felt an itch, like a phantom limb, and

tottered, balance thrown in the dim.

And in that room I searched for you,

I heard your voice, but could not see.

I felt for you in that Dark Room,

My arms outstretched, but could not reach.

And then my grief it swelled, then crested,

Swelled and crested, but did not break.

Instead it rests inside my throat

Immobile grief, as I sit still.

As I sit still on that low stool

in that Dark Room I wondered in,

I feel for you the grief of ages,

in that Dark Room as I sit, still.

you know

no love,

no passion

no style

no faith,

no truth

no eternity

no youth

no wisdom

no love.

Artist

you know

nothing

of these things

except

the ones

you concoct

on

shreds of canvas

in an

empty room,

over used

under-enthused.

You know

no lyrics no

form no

guile no

history,

cause those who

wrote the stories

stuffed the pages

into their yellow

pillow cases,

You are truly

anxious for authorship.

Artist

your fundamentals’

lacking,

deficient in

A through E

you wet your palate on

second-hand-me-downs,

you try eat culture

you anorexic sure,

no credential,

no credit, credo, creed,

do you

Artist

remember the

smell and feel

of  your potential?

That resident-alien,

ex-pat, ex-lover

of your anemic culture?

Last time I saw her

she was toting a tattered

canvas bag through silent

mettle detectors.

Artist,

forgetful waves

nibble away

at your footprints,

may indigestion prevail,

and may the belly of this

gluttonous sea of amnesia

wretch and spew you

viscerally

into the mouths

of the New Hungry

who wait, wide eyed

in empty rooms,

picking at scabs/scraps

in anxiety.

©2006 Debra Providence