Susumba's Book bag issue 6 by blumoonbooks

Issue 6, December 2015

Feature - Retreat, Compete, Fete & Repeat: Literary Fests, Competitions and writing retreats you should know about for 2016 Works by: Yashika Graham, Darren Doyle, Alicia Valasse, Juleus Ghunta, Joseph T. Farquharson, Chantel DaCosta, Saeeda Ali, Tricia Allen, Arnulfo Kantun, Rashida Grant, Dionne Brown, Jodian Downs

Susumbaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Book Bag is a quarterly digital magazine dedicated to showcasing writing of the highest grade from new, emerging and established Caribbean writers at home and in the Diaspora. The magazine is an offshoot of the Caribbean arts and entertainment online magazine Susumba.com We will publish poetry, fiction, flash fiction, interviews as well as reviews of Caribbean books. Occasionally, we will also publish one-act plays and monologues. Currently, we do not offer remuneration for the writings we publish, but we believe that writers should be paid for their work, and so we working on a way to do that in the near future.

Submission Guidelines We accept a maximum of 5 poems and 2 short stories at a time and we have no problem with simultaneous submissions but ask that you notify us immediately if the work is accepted elsewhere. We have no bias of genre or style. Our only requirement is that it be good, so send us your best stuff. Short stories should range from 2,500 to 3,500 words while flash fiction is from 10 600 words. We prefer our poetry to err on the side of Mervyn Morris, the shorter the better. We do accept longer work but if your poem is at the 33 to 64 line tipping point (longer than a page), please only submit two poems at a time. We try to keep our response time to a month, but alas we are human and so it may go beyond that. If you have not heard from us in 90 days, please feel free to send us a query. Though we publish quarterly, we currently accept submissions throughout the year, except in December. There is no reading fee, and submissions are only accepted via email. Send submissions to info@susumba.com Subject: Lastname-Firstname-Submission. Send your work as an attachment (.doc, .txt or .rtf), not in the body of the email. Works sent in the body of the email will not be accepted. Send submissions to info@susumba.com Subject: Lastname-Firstname-Submission

Growing up is hard. You know this. You not sure you can manage it at all. Who in their right mind could? You?

ALL OVER AGAIN

by ADZIKO SIMBA GEGELE 1st prize Burt Award for Caribbean Literature

“An endearing, enduring paean to youthful joys, All Over Again resonates deeply,... ” Trinidad Guardian

An exuberantly hilarious coming of age novel! www.facebook.com/BlueMoonPublishing PO Box 5464 Liguanea PO, Kgn 6, Ja.

“Makes you want to read it all over again!” The Gleaner

@blumoonbooks www.blumoonbooks.com

Blouse & Skirt Books

SUSUMBAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;SBOOKBAG December 2015

Contents 8

The Boy, The Sea

Darren Doyle

Towards the Kingdom

Yashika Graham

In the Dark

Positions

For Mama Georgie

Juleus Ghunta

A Drought Ended

The Story of Survival

Joseph T. Farquharson

Taming the Beast

Birth

Seven Shots

Chantel DaCosta

Messages to Bush Children - Rebuilding

Alicia Valasse

Script for a Cast at a Wake

Wildflowers

Lights that Guide Us Home

Three Dreams

Saeeda Ali

SUSUMBAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;SBOOKBAG December 2015

Contents 27

The Death of Kadeem

Tricia Allen

Cenotes of Cara Blanca

Arnulfo Kantun

Blue Mango

Holding On

Heart of Gold

Rashida Grant

I Remember

Dionne Brown

Home

Prophesy

Migrant

Untitled

Feature: Retreat, Compete, Fete, Repeat: 15 Literary Robyn Stephenson Adventures for 2016

Jodian Downs

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 2015

Editor’s Note It’s been a fabulous year for Caribbean literature, with Caribbean writers snagging the Forward and Man Booker prizes in the UK, the Giller and Writers Trust prizes in Canada, as well as American Book and Pen Awards in the US. Additionally, Kamau Brathwaite earned the Robert Frost Medal, while Maryse Conde was a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize. These wins highlight the possibilities for Caribbean writers. May you find inspiration in it. Live right. Eat right. read right and, of course, write.

Tanya

Tanya Batson-Savage Editor in Chief

A publication of Blue Moon Publishing Cover Illustration: ‘Recruits’ by Greg Bailey Editor: Tanya Batson-Savage tanya@susumba.com Sales: info@susumba.com PO Box 5464, Liguanea PO, Kingston, Jamaica W.I. www.susumba.com

Discover the National Library of Jamaica: Click Here

Discover the National Library of Jamaica: Click Here 6

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 2015

The Boy, The Sea by Darren Doyle

That second time he died felt a million times worse than the first. It felt like it; a second death, his second funeral. She considered the pirogue, rocking with the waves, drifting where they directed. Her eyes went up and she tracked a pelican through its flight, a brown-black mark against the blue of the sky. It dived suddenly, hit the water with a splash like a burst of sparks. Out again, a fish in its bill; its life snatched out, a split second and it ceased to be. The bird struggled into the air and as it climbed a light ran across the scales of its catch. For a moment, the fish flashed silver. It seemed to move, alive. Then, a shift in the way it was angled and it fell lifeless once more. Vindra remembered the urn in her hands. Drop him over the side and watch him sink. But the little that she had, she wanted to hold on to. One time she had decided, no more sugar in her diet. So meticulous, at one point she tried to muster up the taste of sugar and all she could think was ‘sweet’. Even that, what that meant, was a fading memory. Did she remember that right? Eat a spoon of sugar and as soon as the taste leaves your tongue you need another to remember it; a memory of a feeling more and more impossible to pin down the further you got from it. She opened the urn and looked down at his ashes. Already she felt like what he was had been lost. Already she felt like he didn’t exist. Already she felt like he had never existed. She held her proof and a sense of understanding with it, clinging on. How it felt? Like a dream you woke from and immediately forgot; a profound forgetting. But you consider what you remember, and come away with the feeling that it was all too illogical, you should have questioned it while you slept. Not that it was any part the dream. He had been her husband, she was sure of it. And something else, so many other things. Something unique. To the east the green land rose out of the sea, stunning and sultry. A story: Once upon a time, a band of Europeans sailed across the world in search of India. What they found were these islands. West India, they called it. The West Indies. The name never lost, a misnomer that survived decades. A misnomer, a mistake that was never a mistake. An entire swathe of a continent moved on the whim of someone’s thinking until it could be said with certainty: that was what it was. So the story goes. Try to imagine this if you can. She woke at dawn and went out to the beach to catch crabs with her hands. The creatures scuttled around in the early hours of the morning, across the sand and the

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 2015

The Boy, The Sea Darren Doyle

rock, vanishing into holes and crevices. She went around to the back of the house and the smell of the sea intensified. The tide was low, the waves rolling in tamely with gentle crashes. She walked to the section of the beach, where she knew she would find the crabs. Getting there she must have passed right by the boy but she didn’t see him. She had been coming back, turning at the sight of something moving across the sand, over the tangled black seaweed, over the unevenness of the shore; stone and pebble, seashell and sand. She folded in her skirt between her legs, getting ready to bend over to grab it with her fingers between its eyes, the only place you could without having one of those claws clamp you, when she nearly tripped over him. She jumped, a hand going to her heart, taking a second look to make sure. “Lord,” she said, “you frighten me there, son,” a term she used loosely. He didn’t seem to move when she spoke. She looked up to find where he had come from, for footsteps in the sand, and found none. She looked down again, for a second thinking he might be a statue, or some kind of very lifelike prop. She reached down to turn him around and her hand came up quickly again. He felt wet, slippery, moving under her touch. She went around in front of him, stooped to look up into his bent face. A strong sense of the sea, a fresh smell like fishes. A smell she loved. When she first peered up into his face she felt suddenly as though she had been transferred back in time. It confused her. He had a striking resemblance to her son, or what he looked like years ago at nine or ten. The dark brown skin, black hair and eyes, soft chin and chubby cheeks. A look into the past, she stared and stared. “Brian?” she tried, uncertain. The boy looked up, but something was wrong with his eyes. Tears filmed them, slipping loose. He clutched at his ankles where he sat in the sand. “Br…” she studied his face, “You ok, son?” He put a hand to his face to hide his eyes, ducked his head again. She put a hand on his chin in response, tried to lift it and failed, angling her head instead to keep his face in view. “You ok, son? What happen? Look at me. Wha’s your name?” The boy was shivering. His clothes were loose fitting, too big for him and dry as a wick. His hands and legs were spotted with beads of water where they were exposed. She tried again to get him to talk, asking him where he had come from, where he wanted to go, but he only hung his head. The longer he sat there without saying anything, the more worried she became, looking off in both directions along the beach for someone else who might have been with him. The beach was vacant but for those two, gray and rocky in the dawn light. The trees at the edge of the rocks crowded in, a tangle of branches and moss green leaves, of vines and sand and dirt and fallen coconuts that sprouted shoots. There was darkness under the canopy of those trees, and their boundaries bent suddenly on either side to grant only a narrow view of what lay near.

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 2015

The Boy, The Sea Darren Doyle

You know the sound of thunder, that low rumble like God is lazily rearranging heavy furniture? She looked up at it then, up to the sky. What you would expect; clouds gathered and rain threatening. A boy alone, on a beach, wet and crying, she tried to get him up. “Get up,” she said. He sat. She reached under his hand and lifted him to his feet. They wobbled and folded beneath him, all elastic like his bones were made of sheets of paper, bending easily one way and the next before he crumbled to the ground again. He looked up, held her gaze, and shook his head, no. And she was struck then by how much that gesture reminded her of her husband, forgetting that he was just a little boy. She saw his mouth move before she heard anything from him and leaned in closer to make out his words. But the way he talked was so low and wavering… “What?” He spoke again. She made out words a second after he had stopped. “The sea, the sea…” she heard, or thought she heard, a rushed, and mumbled, and frantic thing. She told him to repeat what he had said. He didn’t. She made him lie back in the sand, telling him not to move about too much, then hurried inside again, glancing at the grey sky. In the house, she went to the bedroom for something she might wrap him in. There was a window in there that looked out to where he lay. She glanced out through it as she worked her way back and forth in the room, opening cupboards and drawers, finding a thick bed sheet and pulling it out. She glanced up again and sought him out, then back down to search for the phone, thinking to call a neighbor because she wasn’t sure who else she should talk to. A fat raindrop hit the window with a plop like a coin dropped in water, splattering into finer drops, destroying itself. Vindra looked up at the noise, to the window, through the window, for the boy. She took a step closer. And what captivated her wasn’t simply that he was gone, but that he seemed to have been snatched, in a split second, out of the very fabric of existence. Can you imagine that? She went out again down to the beach to look in the sand for his footprints. There were a maze of them going back and forth, crossing one over the other, which could have easily been hers. She studied them a while before she realized she still held the bed sheet in her hand, folding it up so it wouldn’t drag in the sand, across those footprints. Those footprints like fingerprints; individual marks of existence. She stared a moment at the spot she remembered she had last seen him in. You’re running into a forest, trees all around and the light dimming under their shade. You stop for a moment to catch your breath, leaning against a tree trunk. You stop yourself and start because the tree you thought stood just near you isn’t there. In fact, the entire forest is gone. There is no forest. You’re surrounded by water and you’re at sea and you’re lost. In the boat, for the first time, Vindra cried over the loss. She cried desolately and ungracefully. It felt like a second death to her, her husband had been lost a second time. Why had he come back at all, if only to leave so suddenly? This time she hadn’t had the chance to prepare for it, it had been so

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The Boy, The Sea Darren Doyle

unexpected. No saving up of memories, no time to cherish the last of his days. No hospitals, doctors, prognoses, no decline. She had barely cried then, but this was too much. On his deathbed, when it happened, he had given her a look before he slipped out of the world. She had told him to fight, just a little longer. “Not yet,” she told him. He held her gaze and shook his head. And moments before his death that look had triggered a memory of a moment when he was most alive. At their wedding, sitting at the bridal table looking out at the wedding reception. Looking unusual, stiff and distracted in his ceremonial clothing; dhoti and turban. Just a slice of his hair visible from beneath the turban. Disarrayed now by the garment, although she knew he had combed it carefully that morning. He had leaned to her and whispered something in her ear that made her smile, then laugh, hiding her face in her hand and moments later in the shade of his face. He had whispered something which she had immediately forgot. And when she had pulled away from him to look him in the eyes she saw that same distracted look he wore dying, like he wanted to focus on her but there were a million other things running through his head that he had to keep track of; a lifetime of thoughts. That was the look, the exact look, the boy had given her before he disappeared. The anniversary of their wedding came the day after she found the boy. Brian might have remembered and decided to call, although it was more likely down to chance that he did. She had gone out and coming in again heard the phone ringing. Dropping the bags she carried, she hurried to it. Reaching for the phone it stopped ringing. She took a look at the number, dialed it again, but it only rang and rang. She took the phone from her ear and stared at it curiously. She must have set the phone aside a few minutes, gone about her business, before she heard her name being called out front at the gate. She heard a clanging too, someone knocking the metal latch against the gate itself. Another call and she shouted through the house in response, her voice filling it, the house dead but for electric hums, the whisper of the breeze. She walked to a window and looked out to see who it might be. The window afforded a commanding view; a lone tree blocked a sliver of a corner, only partially and patchily; spaces between its leaves. But she couldn’t see anyone. Two more knocks of the gate startled her, made her vaguely jumpy. The sky outside was clear when she got to the door, and she immediately caught the glint of the sun reflecting off a section of metal on one of the fishing rods leaned to the gate. She scanned the street for someone who might have left them, standing seconds that stretched and swelled tumid, as she took in its quiet emptiness. She went out cautiously, as though it might have been a prank she was wary of being caught up in. At the gate she studied the rods, her husband’s, but she couldn’t remember the last time she had seen them. He had been using different rods, newer rods for years. These had quietly disappeared long before they got married, without her even noticing they were gone. She reached for them and pulled them over the gate, somehow hot where she held them.

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 2015

The Boy, The Sea Darren Doyle

The first time he had taken her fishing, they used these rods. She had never fished before, never been on a boat that small, that far out at sea and it had made her seasick. She caught nothing. His catch was neatly stored away, the fish dying franticly at first then meekly, Brian catching them and throwing them into a bucket to flap weakly on their sides until their time passed. An idle comment as they were sailing back, the sun low in the sky, the wind cooling: “You ain’, rather the sea than the land, Vin?” but it had only confirmed something she had already figured on her own. She let it slip by and brought up something mundane instead, something she couldn’t remember now. Waiting for his response she looked into the bucket of fish. They had all fallen silent for some time now, inert and lifeless. No more tame flexing of fins, no more tired attempts at righting themselves, flapping their tails as thought they were still moving through water. They had all died. Dead, dead. She reached in to poke at the belly of one of the fish, and all of a sudden, her hand barely moved from where it had been positioned, almost as soon as her mind had fallen on that particular fish, it started thrashing about. It startled her, so much that she recoiled. Brian looked at her in surprise. The second time she saw the boy he was perfectly still, just as still as the first time she had seen him. She found him exactly two weeks after that first meeting. She knew because she was about to call her son for his birthday. Exactly two weeks after the death of her husband, that fact noted a long time ago. When she spotted him, she was standing at the same window where she had seen him vanish the first time. It felt, miserably, like a direct reverse of the moment she had discovered his loss, only equally as confusing; from lost to found, from found to lost. She stared, leaned towards the window to study the outline the way it was positioned in the sand. She set the phone aside and went around, down to the beach, approaching him cautiously. She might have thought he was about to disappear again. He was half buried in the sand, the surface of it contoured smooth around him, sand creeping up his sides and over his body as though he had been rolling around in it before he stopped moving. His eyes open, undirected and lifeless, his skin the wrong colour, his body slightly bloated, his clothes faded and tearing and a smell like freshly caught fish about him. She had a sense of her husband’s presence the closer she got, like she was walking up to his dead body a final time. When she finally got to him she paused, then stooped at his side. Pick something you love doing. Do you have it? Now imagine you’re doing that thing, whatever it is. Your head goes down and it’s dawn. Your head goes back up and it’s dusk. Vindra, looking up, had no real sense of how much time had passed. She might have stooped there a second. She might have stooped there an hour. She straightened up, looking around for someone to come to her aide, someone who might be able to explain what was going on. She looked down at the boy and saw her husband in his posture, her son in his features. She went inside again. She tried to ignore it, what she had seen. She busied herself about the house. A few seconds and she found herself being drawn to the window to peer out at the beach. He was still there. Still in the same position she had found him. Still unmoving. She looked away and left the room. A few

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The Boy, The Sea Darren Doyle

minutes later she returned, approaching the window tentatively; a kind of wild, faithless hope that maybe this time… For a second she thought that he had disappeared again. For a second she began to relax. Then she saw the body again. She tried to turn away and found that she couldn’t. She stared a moment longer. Just to be sure. Then finally she did turn away. Out the room, out the door, down to the beach. She stood over the boy and looked and looked, trying to ‘un’-see his resemblances, trying to make sense of what a forever recurring moment before she would come to understand as true and a nagging split second after would reject as impossible. She bent over and rested her hand, flat on his chest, checking to see if the cold she knew she would feel was real. She straightened up again slowly, looking up uncertainly. Pick something you have done too much of. Do you have it? Is it a job, school, a chore, something you just have to deal with right now, that never seems to be completely taken care of? You do that thing for a day, and at the end of it you try to pick out a single moment that stood out from among the others but they are all consigned to a mundane haze. Your mind, accustomed and bored, has summed those moments, tallied them and deemed them all equally irrelevant. That was how Vindra remembered it, nothing particularly noteworthy of the day. A sense that she had been visited and it was over, and her chance to communicate with the dead had long since passed. A sense that she knew what she had to do and should get it done. She built a pyre on the beach. Taking her time. Doing it with care. She had to cut the branches from the trees around her and drag them over, pouring fuel over them gratuitously. When she was done she went over to the body, bent over it and lifted it on to her shoulder, hefting him over to be burned. She lit the torch, did the ritual seven lap walk around the pyre, lighting the flame in his mouth herself. She stood and watched the flames lick and roar, black smoke churning dirtily into the sky. Hours and hours, she watched, her eyes glassy, the heat forever shifting, making her sweat. When it was done she shoveled the ashes into her husband’s urn. Going in again to wash, she looked down and spotted a tiny, iridescent, glassy something stuck to her hand. She plucked it off with the other. A fish scale. She raised her hand and checked again, finding another. She looked again and found two more. For the rest of the walk she kept reaching across to pluck scales from her hand, her arm, her t-shirt all the way up to her shoulder. In the boat now, she leaned over the edge. She let the base of the urn touch the water. Holding it with two hands, on either end like she was hanging on to a baking tray. She had been lying to herself for years, she realized. She had never allowed herself to confront losing him, hanging on to him for too long. She let him go.

SUSUMBAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;SBOOKBAG December 2015

Yashika Graham Towards the Kingdom Carve out the dayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s prayer on bed posts, a lean-to beseeching a spiraling worth the words of God or his men. Maas Richard will direct the choir, fish you from the water-logged drowse and set you right. Ketch spirit if you feel it. Reference the lord's time table, and calm the quaking writhing you with mint. All else will rise hence forth as dream.

In the Dark Note who you are in this dark, how you blend with shadow, with night maybe to run free, invisible. Til some great beam hits, moves you into motion. How now you differ from yourself as absence, as darkness itself.

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 2015

Yashika Graham

Positions I can’t commit to staying still to holding up a flag to your fury to the curious irony of a festive falcon inside a black bird body. I can’t commit to much more than waking, than writing as far as this heart will take me. Don’t ask me to ride your wagon chant on your chariot or to milk mahogany dry of its last bit of red dread. Understand that not again will I join you pauper-heart, in your flips and flutters, playing dead, flailing for a sighting, for someone to lift that pale flag high and come dangling from a heart string to your rescue like always, to have all of you like never, to always leave trembling, babbling bumbo blood-fire!

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 2015

Juleus Ghunta For Mama Georgie this poem is about the endurance of the Pell River Spring which filled our pots and buckets long after our standpipes stopped running and drought dried out our water drums

A Drought Ended He would throw her across the room. Some men make sport of such things. I was warned to see and blind. Still, I watched through the window how her children, forced into a ritual dandy shandy, dodged their wailing mother. The day she heaved the pot from the stove, a drought ended in Pell River. Colin

a cumulus of steam

screamed.

Behind the bamboo fence I joined neighbours who had secretly danced for rain. Serve him right, they said, injustice don’t sleep long like death.

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 2015

Joseph Farquharson Story of Survival In a story called “Serve Ival”; where Anansi plays tricks but refuses to bear arms against the common Foe. When the denouement is rebellion the tale can only end in blood or fire. Happily-ever-after only comes to those who are as if they never were. There are never ever legends in our own time; Only those in distant pasts who grow bigger the further we look.

Taming the Beast He found joy in those arms; on nights when neck cramps slipped away under practised hands. Those nights when, with head nestled between sagging breasts his lips found nipples hard as guinep seeds. And moving down he found that sacred text, pregnant with stories of eye-opening joy and blinding pain written in hieroglyphic stretch marks. Each night, only the warm glow of that love kept that rolling-calf anger penned.

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 2015

Joseph Farquharson

Birth Birth I am pregnant with my ancestors; Those whose painful entrance knotted bloody navel strings; And whose cries of “Mama!” Brought no solace To the fluid-filled jailhouse That secured them for hard labour. Rebirth I am pregnant with my ancestors; Those who died that I may live, And raised Cain to light the path To a distant smouldering future; And whose silken tongues Wove sticky fables, cocooning the soul Through pricked-up ears Willing to catch anything sounding like hope.

Stillbirth I am pregnant with my ancestors; Those who turned sideways In their middle-passage exit Drowning in the slimy mess of amniotic greed. And whose breathless bodies Were cradled in Death Before Life got chance to kiss her noiseless brood. No midwife’s slap can bring them back.

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 2015

Seven Shots by Chantel DaCosta Boopboopboopboopboopboopboop. Seven shots rang out. "What was that?" Anthony asked. His voice was high pitched with panic. Anthony knew what it was but wanted someone to say it wasn't what he thought; he needed desperately for someone to refute what he knew. Fear mixed with terror hit him hard in his belly. Anthony couldn't stand straight. Please let it not be ... please let it not be that. The "please not be" raced through his mind thousands of times in the seven seconds it took for the rough confirmation. "Gun shat," Kerrecia offered, her tone harsh, biting. "E soun' near down likka pan Arange street ar Charles street." Her voice was booming now. Her feral energy was boosted by the reverberation of the shots fired. Mere moments earlier she was slumped over, head on her arm on the desk in the reception area of the administrative office, groaning her quotidian belly ache made her weak. It had rendered her incapacitated. Her only reprieve from it seemed to be Facebook. Neck craned at an impossible angle, without disturbing her right hand, on which her head rested, her left hand was busy scrolling through, liking, commenting and sharing. She had just published her post-lunch status that the fried chicken and rice and peas and raw vegetables with curried gravy and ketchup and pepper made her stomach ache. Again. Her index finger hovered over the enter key indecisive as to whether she should grab the mouse and click the join tab to indicate her attendance to 300-Bottles-All-White-Bikini-Water-Party-Edition which was that upcoming Saturday when the shots rang out shattering her Wednesday afternoon malaise. Now she seemed excited by the disturbance. She lived on Love Lane just behind the cultural centre and could easily crouch under the recently slashed hole in the perimeter fence and bounded home if the police cordoned off the main roads. The others in the office remained silent, fear etched on faces. Silent prayers went out to godsjehovah-jireh. They beseeched the almighty to provide safe passage out of Downtown Kingston.

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 2015

Alicia Valasse Messages to Bush Children - Rebuilding

Remember old Fedewick’s hall On that plain, plain hill Where we learnt our numbers and letters, And we’d play “tikitok” before Sunday morning mass, And ackra would fry on them broken-down coal pot Ama would keep under de banana shed, And Rasta’s spliff would catcha fiyah Under de copra shed, And Eya would cut de dry coconut thin, thin, thin Every morning for de hen in de yard, And Clarah would whine down low When de Zouk riddim start every Saturday night, And Gregor would send stone From de road where donkey hurt his foot, And we would sit under de Pwa Dou tree Counting de seeds on de ground: It will rise again People will come – Farmers, philosophers, builders, Christians, Lovers without people to love will come To rebuild.

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 2015

Alicia Valasse

Script for a Cast at a Wake “twas a sad, sad day when papa closed his eyesleaving behind the world its memoirs, its vice. dead! dead! papa Bill is dead. signal the others, way up ahead hear the cries of those at his bed dead! dead! papa Bill is dead. tears from feigned grief met wails from occasions past as Echo, his granddaughter, met the brilliant cast. dead! dead! papa Bill is dead. signal the others, way up ahead hear the cries of those at his bed dead! dead! papa Bill is dead. she fell to her weak knees, held on his hand moving to the loud chants of the grieving band. dead! dead! papa Bill is dead. signal the others, way up ahead hear the cries of those at his bed dead! dead! papa Bill is dead. and on his lifeless chest her head did remainher tears dripping … dripping, to tell of her pain. dead! dead! papa Bill is dead. signal the others, way up ahead hear the cries of those at his bed

Alicia Valasse

dead! dead! papa Bill is dead. then at long last, the pale horseman did come and Echo’s wails pierced through the grieving band's hum. dead! dead! papa Bill is dead. signal the others, way up ahead hear the cries of those at his bed dead! dead! papa Bill is dead.

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 2015

Saeeda Ali Wildflowers Look at that girlover there. no, not that one! next to heryes, she. The one in the white sundress purple flower in her hair chocolate smear on her cheek matching her eyessad, they’re so sad. meeting with mine they widen ever so slightly. she’s surprised to find an observer she haltsher lips partand form a smile. she raises a hand, paint stained fingernails brush hair behind her ear she turns to go the purple flower now lopsided. Maybe I’ll see her tomorrow tending the wildflowers on her garden wall her white dress splattered with the colours of the rainbow.

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 2015

Saeeda Ali

Lights that Guide Us Home I Evening colours fade into a nearby street lamp while night begins her trek across the sky. Seven o’ clock brings a noisy divertissement, and the sound of tired feet, slugging along passageways. The sheets smell of deep grey and blue, the colours staining each hand-held teacup. Dusty paper coats each limp brown strand and drumming fingers do nothing to settle the graphite seeping in. Seven thirty-one. II Seven thirty-two, what to do? Each hand strains to come around Just as hers when their arms encircle her. Maybe it’s best, she thinks, a surrender to the flow. Still, they won’t try feeling for her. But it doesn’t matter. Little do they know of the lavender nights Her soul lingers through the country roads the golden light and strumming, the smell of brewing tea and hum of some faraway machine pulling her heart tight across the sky. Cold light floods these passageways, and she laughs, drags her fingers across to feel the colour of her smoothened sheets. III Your lives blur past, calling you into the abyss. Hands vanish but voices scrape along corners searching, for your infinitely unsettled soul. You had such a vision of an immaculate world, hopelessly shaped in the palms of your soiled hands. Betrayals come and go, drawn to each fluorescent glow

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 2015

Saeeda Ali

that pierces your cold nights; nights where you’re tethered to normality by the sound of tired hands, twisting your doorknob. You gaze up at the dreams that suspend from your ceiling while the graphite stirs in your blood. Little thing, hungering for knowledge of some godforsaken unknown. IV I am frightened by the things I am capable of and how I hurt myself with these words. My worlds are littered with memories I can never replace and stories time can never repair. Sometimes the night becomes faint and my heart stutters, sending my breath swirling down every cup of scorching tea. It’s hard to protect my flame and watch it reach higher when I’m used to being blinded by fires, and the pain my own drumming fingers can inflict. But on these cold nights, my conscience floats out to linger near the colours swirling beneath the street lamps. The graphite burns hot through my veins and I; I watch as it tends to the cracks on the ceiling and sends these colours radiating through the night.

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 2015

Saeeda Ali

Three Dreams There are words inside, poems unbidden Flowing through like the world is in me, bursting forth from my lips. If I could, by some miracle manage to capture a few words, I’d hold them out. Words, forever encased in glass and say, “Here. This is for you.” The soul that longs for yours. The mind, splattered with all the songs of your heart. Here are the things I didn’t say, couldn’t say, never would. These words in me, beckoning, creeping out like the universe inside me bursting forth through the cracks. If I could manage to reach a little deeper I might remember how it felt. Arms and jackets and little bound books your laugh like a feathered dream catcher, eyes softening and smile growing and seeming to really just see into myStop. The memories, they aren’t enough. So many words in me, taking over exploding into colour and stardust. I fade into another purple-edged fantasy and hope that my memory will flicker and shimmer upon your canvas.

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 2015

The Death of Kadeem by Tricia Allen One evening after school, he approached me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulder then said, “I’m Kadeem Langley, you brother.” I thought he was joking or trying to be cute so I didn’t pay him much mind. Afterwards, every day at the end of school I’d notice him standing at the same spot near the school gate, waiting for me. A group of grade 11 boys watched from beyond the school gate, hooting, their eyes flashing some sort of knowingness. He’d shoo them away. “Unno gwaan nuh man! Is jealous unno jealous, eh! Well, too bad. She off limits!” Afterwards, we’d walk the worm-rotted bridge that stretched across Barnett River, hop across the gaps where boards and metal should have been. I’d grip his arm, my breath lodged in my throat. “How you one fraidy-fraidy so! You such a girl!” he had said the first time we crossed the bridge. “Well, what you expect?” I replied. “You think is peeni-wallie between ma legs?” He looked at me in shock before erupting with laughter – the kind that rumbled from belly-bottom and shook shoulders. When he finally caught his breath, he said, “You know you really strange. Is fraid you fraid to use the word penis? Bwoy, is which bush you come from?” I had cut passed him, my mouth in a pout as we crossed the old bridge. We walked the backstreets of Montego Bay on our way to the taxi stand, passing dilapidated buildings half-burnt by the sun, smelling the urine-soaked corners. All I noticed then was Kadeem’s smile – how it made the city gleam. It was the happiest time of my life. But happiness wasn’t meant to last. It while I was eating rubbery kidney at the dinner table on a Friday night. Dad cleared his throat. “I hear you walking round town with some boy name Kadeem,” he said. “Is true what I hearing Suzie?” When I didn’t respond, he started to shout, “Answer me when I talking to you!”

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 2015

The Death of Kadeem Tricia Allen

My lips moved; only dead air escaped at first. Then the words gushed out like water from a broken stand pipe. “I met Kadeem at school he real nice we just walk to the bus stop together is all – “You see what this girl leaving me to deal with, Carol?” said Dad, turning to Mom who was sitting silently at the table. “Look how many times I warn her about boys – how they can’t be trusted and now she come telling me she meet bwoy name Kadeem – how him real nice!” He paused, turning to me then said, “Listen to me – I don’t want you hanging around this boy ever again! You hear me?” I nodded. My lips trembled. My heart grew heavy. Then Mom finally spoke. Looking directly at Dad she said, “Well, I don’t see what the problem is. For what I been hearing these years, Kadeem is her brother.” Her words were potent with accussation. “Why you bringing up ol’ things now? Why you want to mash up the good-good life we build sake o’ rumours?” said Dad, almost pleading. Mom never said a word more. She gathered up the plates, as though collecting the delicate remnants of her life, rested them in the hollow of the kitchen sick then went to bed. Dad walked out, slamming the door. When he finally returned hours later, he smelt of Bay rum and grief and death, looking paler than a ghost.

SUSUMBAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;SBOOKBAG December 2015

Arnulfo Kantun Cenotes of Cara Blanca The cenotes are satisfied Having immersed A maiden already heavy With the burden of her fate Into the contemptuous Blue haze Turning without haste To Larimar mists Their capricious depths Now resting benignly In the blazing fire of The noonday sun She may have fallen Or is ascending slowly To the mirrored heavens Rising up like Christ Unfazed by the fuss Of the gasping Unctuous assembly As she slowly meanders This solitary passage Casually bruising The obligatory tufts Of cumulus clouds

SUSUMBAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;SBOOKBAG December 2015

Arnulfo Kantun

She succumbs like someone Floating in air Slow motion Breasts filling out Without competing With gravity Like ripe mameys sinking In a darkening mire Clothes flung out freely Hair billowing around Treacherous black coils Of quieted serpents This is how angels die Far removed From their cosmic winds Their wings Useless contrivances Reduced to the terrine Physics of this world: Feathers, barbs, barbules And feather mites Waterlogged Ordinary Like drowned manatees

Blue Mango I have shared one Blue mango with its Purple bluish palette Mixed in with red rust And thumbprint Like bruise Secret mollusks Flesh brooding Clotted blood hue Shadowed indigo For kings and queens Shiny white linen Dipped and tempered By patient tired Beaten hands I have reaped This sweet thing Rescued From its soured

SUSUMBAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;SBOOKBAG December 2015

Arnulfo Kantun

Green slumber Of forgetting Of force-ripening But instead I have left It alone To fruition Untouched By the fuss of My salt labor Now conjured Like a prized Pearled egg For you Yellow juice Runs down Your chin Sweet sticky stain Scent of sun and Patient draw of soil Water sweeting in Light and air Turning to rich Resinous gasps Stirring slow time In bark and tree bole Secret covered passages Through hidden Wisps of water Towards desires hushed Away from light

SUSUMBAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;SBOOKBAG June 2014

Arnulfo Kantun

Holding On This bird is held Perhaps against Its bird-will This is no Soft feathered robin Night hawk Yellowed talons Warming ember beak If it could sing Without whim Possess this Tender spot Brooding with Purple taint Restive coils What makes you tick? Crackling like maracas Or bone crunch I have taken The singe out of TennĂŠ toned calabash Cupping the rounded Skull brushed Close cropped Peppered curls Resist me with your Rust iron blood And salt your tears With the furtive slick Of your lizard Tasting tongue

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 2015

Heart of Gold by Rashida Grant The sun shone as bright as it felt, warming my chocolate coloured skin, while the wind battled for dominance, the cool sea breeze tuning out the heat. We strolled off of the concrete, removing our shoes as we touched the sand. As if in sync, we kept walking along the beach taking in the view, the deck now far behind us. I sat down cross legged and dug my feet into the sand, the pleasant warmth travelled upwards, settling all over. I looked up to see an amused Jiraiya staring down at me with a small smile, his low afro eclipsed by the sun. "You know I thought you would have run straight to the waves," he said giving me the same look. "In my head I knew the sand would feel nice if I took a seat, so I did, and I was right," I said with a smile. He responded with a chuckle, taking a seat next to me, legs outstretched, resting his bag by his side. This was perfect. The sun and wind were in sync, just as he and I. The sand held warmth that the butterflies in my tummy simply loved. We sat in silence as comfortable as my bed on a Sunday morning, just breathing, enjoying the view of the playful waves rolling in and rushing back, teasing. I turned towards him, only to see him staring at me, so focused and intent as though he was watching TV. I was so lost in nature's trance, I hadn't even realizee. I looked into his eyes and what I saw caused my face to go warm, if it could be seen, my cheeks would have been red. He noticed. "I'm ready to dive in," I said standing up. I wonder if he knows he makes me nervous. "Okay," he replied without moving. This time I didn't miss his strong gaze as I took off the dress covering my bikini clad body. I turned around and looked at him. "You coming?" He stood up and took off his shirt, leaving him in just his swim trunks, revealing a well defined chest and abs. "Meet me there!" I shouted as I took off. "Tiye wait! Take out your earrings." "Why?"

SUSUMBAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;SBOOKBAG December 2015

Heart of Gold Rashida Grant

"The sea loves gold."

SUSUMBAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;SBOOKBAG December 2015

Dionne Brown I Remember I remember the days when we used to run through cane fields and hide from each other, giggling hysterically. The grass was so much taller than us, glistening in the morning sun. I could barely see you, but you were always there, your uncontrollable laughter leading me back to you. I remember the days of chasing chickens around the yard until our feet were covered with dirt, and we were breathless, sweating and falling on our bottoms, back to back on the verandah. I remember the days of porridge and white, hard-dough bread with butter, licking our fingers, lips covered in grease, but smiling from ear to ear. I remember your moody days when you would shove me to the ground and chase me away

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 2015

Dionne Brown

because you didn’t want your friends to see me hanging around you. I remember the days when your voice started to change, and you became so aware of yourself and so shy, but never too shy to talk with me about your hopes and your dreams. I was in love with you then, and I thought you were in love with me too. I remember our first dance. It was awkward. But I didn’t mind being awkward with you. You were my soul mate, my childhood friend, my dearest companion. I was in love with you then, and I thought you were in love with me too. I remember how poor we were. Barefoot sometimes. Unkempt most times. But I was comfortable around you, torn dresses and muddy feet, even as I started to bloom. I remember the day you left for college. You gave me your most precious possession and told me you would come back. I was in love with you then, and I thought you were in love with me too. I remember how my heart ached as days and months went by without a word from you, and I cried uncontrollably, hoping that somehow you would hear and come back home.

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 201d

Dionne Brown

And then you finally came. And I felt ashamed. I was plain compared to her. My ruddiness was dull against her glow. I remember the look in your eyes and how they met the ground as you introduced her to me as your own. I remember how my heart sank and tears stung my eyes as you walked away with her hand in yours. I was in love with you, and I thought you were in love with me too.

Home A familiar road, nature’s unruly bushes, a contrast to deliberate, well-manicured lawns called “beautiful”. A quaint brick house, whitewashed walls, ugly against Spanish-tile roofs of neatly constructed, orderly domains. Ahhh, sweet sautѐd meats served with delicate mounds of aromatic rice, miles apart in elegance from a bowl of red-pea soup with chunks of yellow yam, salt beef and unsightly dumplings. How I long for the wild, the quaint, the ordinary. How I long for home, unpretentious, permeated with memories and childhood smells. Comforting. Easy.

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 2015

Jodian Downs Prophesy

Yes, She told me about it, She told me about them. My grandmother told me She told me how sweetly they pierced her side. Her tears explained the agony that befell her. She told me, she told me all. I know now Because she told me She told me how they fought her How they ripped her flesh off and broke her bones. She told me how they shot her- straight in the buttocks And robbed everything she owned from under her gut. She told me how their icy untruths punctured her hope Destroyed her light and blinded her. There is more, Because she told me all. I didn't know that all she told me would be my life six years later.

SUSUMBAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;SBOOKBAG December 2015

Jodian Downs

Migrant Tell me, how am I to make a home out of rocks and thorns. I told you not to leave me here, didn't I? Why would you pull the sweetness from my toes and the sensitivity from my nipples? You are the fleeting Grey budding in the middle of my head. You are the hot black blood brewing underneath my punctured thumb. You are the broken notes. The cold salt water And the sweet pieces of freshly broken splinters, sticking underneath my flesh. Tell me, how am I to make a home out of rocks and thorns! Tell me! I wanted to be held. I wanted to be buried within the bedding of your moving suitcases. I wanted to land with you, To fly with you. So tell me, How am I to â&#x20AC;Ś Never mind, I see the rocks and thorns ain't that bad after all.

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 2015

Jodian Downs

Untitled "I have a message for you" I slanted my shoulders, rocked two steps to my left, head facing my window as I brushed a braid off my eyelids and my hand spun swiftly to my eyes’ rescue. I spun around with urgency to see who had spoken. "I have a message for you" She repeated I curved my lips and masked my voice with a chipmunk's whisper as I mimicked "I have a message for you" I smiled at myself and immediately snapped out of my imaginative space. There is an actual person at the window speaking, "what the heck" I murmured to myself. "I have a message for you" She repeated, for a third time. I smiled again, as I removed my hand from my eyes and looked on raptly, while my face exposed the bewildered expression on display. "The universe is molding you, do you know that" I sat in silence staring at her bright, poised politeness. "You have not yet become, my sweet child. It is a process, you are becoming and unbecoming, molding, bleeding, bending and breaking" I continued in silence. Stunned. "You are still arriving to yourself, my love, in increments" she prolonged. "There are a multitude of poems brewing inside you. They are buried at the bottom of your throat, in the middle of your hands, at the top of your head, at the tip of your fingers, at the edge of your tongue, dancing and waiting to be written"

SUSUMBAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;SBOOKBAG December 2015

Jodian Downs

She ended. That's why I continued to write. How could I bury this beautiful gift after receiving such a moving message from the Sun.

SUSUMBAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;SBOOKBAG December 2015

FEATURE Retreat, Compete, Fete, Repeat: 15 Literary Adventures for 2016 by Robin Stephenson

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 2015

Retreat, Compete, Fete, Repeat: 15 Literary Adventures for 2016 It’s the end of the year, a 0me for new beginnings, new discoveries. And the re-‐ discovery of old favourites. In the Book Bag’s ﬁnal issue of the year we bring you ﬁ@een literary pursuits to look forward to in 2016. With the help of these brief introduc0ons, the discerning writer, and reader, should have a surplus of bookish adventures with which to bedeck their 2016 calendar.

Hedgebrook Writing Retreat

Retreats “Writing is easy,” said Red Smith, “you simply sit down at the typewriter, open a vein, and bleed.” It’s a little macabre and exaggerated, but essentially achieves the point. The process of writing often involves a great deal of vulnerability – and what better place to be vulnerable than among fellow writers also sitting down to bleed. These five writing retreats will help to get the blood pumping out of your veins and onto the page. From January 7-10, 2016, the North Coast Writing Retreat takes over the scenic Mt. Plaisir Estate Hotel, Grand Riviere, Trinidad. The retreat is open to 16 participants from any nationality, and will focus on poetry and life writing with mentors Loretta Collins Klobah (poetry) and Monique Roffey (life writing). The deadline for applications is December 24 so get those keyboards clacking. Trinidad is also home to the Cropper Foundation Residential Workshop for Caribbean Writers. The three-week residential workshop created by The Cropper Foundation in partnership with UWI’s Centre for Creative and Festival arts has been unearthing and developing new talent since 2000, under the tutelage of established writers such as Funso Aiyejina and Merle Hodge, among others. In August 2015 the Foundation hosted the workshop for teenaged writers; who knows what surprises are in store for the 2016 installment.

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 2015

Retreat, Compete, Fete, Repeat: 15 Literary Adventures for 2016

In 2007, Millicent Graham and Joni Jackson created The Drawing Room Project to “draw people to the centre of creative conversations”. Since then The Drawing Room Project has hosted poetry workshops and writing retreats, the most recent of which was held in June this year at Liberty Hill Great House in St. Ann. The 2015 chapter of The Drawing Room Project retreat centered mainly on poetry with Poet Laureate of Jamaica Mervyn Morris as mentor, but the scope of the DRP is unfettered by genre so it’s worth looking out (and hoping) for their third staging in 2016. If you prefer to open your veins on foreign soil, here are two stateside writing retreats that are always worth mentioning. Situated on a sprawling 400-acre estate in Saratoga Springs, New York, Yaddo is an artists’ retreat with a legacy. Founded in 1900 by Spencer and Katrina Trask its mission is to “nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment”. Past residents include Truman Capote, Langston Hughes and Sylvia Plath. Currently, Yaddo accepts 200 professional artists per year from all artistic disciplines, providing them with residencies of two weeks to two months free of charge. A 48-acre farm on Whidbey Island, Washington is home to Hedgebrook, a women-only writing retreat that offers residencies and master classes to writers around the world regardless of nationality, age or race. Hegebrook accepts six published or unpublished writers at a time (40 per year) for two to six week residencies at no cost to the writer. Applications for 2016 have closed but you can visit the Hedgebrook website to find out when applications will open for residencies in 2017. So you’ve retreated and advanced your writing, now what? You share your finished product with the world – and that’s where writing awards come in.

Competitions Whether they are big names like the Commonwealth Short Story Prize or newcomers, there is no shortage of writing competitions. Here are the five you need to know. The Commonwealth Short Story Prize succeeded the 24 year old Commonwealth Writers Prize in 2012. It is delivered by the Commonwealth Writers and awards the best, unpublished short fiction piece from a Commonwealth country. The award is designed to highlight new and emerging voices in fiction, particularly those from countries with little or no publishing infrastructure. The grand prize is

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 2015

Retreat, Compete, Fete, Repeat: 15 Literary Adventures for 2016

£5000 with regional prizes of £2500. Entries generally open in autumn to vie for the award in the following year. The OCM Bocas Prize, sponsored by One Caribbean Media is open to published literary books by Caribbean authors. The award offers prizes in poetry, fiction and literary non-fiction. Category prizes value USD$3000 and the overall prize (selected from category winners) values USD$10,000. Past winners of the Bocas Prize include Vladimir Lucien’s Sounding Ground (2015), and Robert Antoni’s Like Flies to Whatless Boys (2014). The 2016 deadlines are November 2015 and January 2016. Awards are presented annually at the Bocas Literary Festival in Trinidad and Tobago. If young adult novels are more along your alleyway, the Burt Award for Caribbean Literature has awards published and unpublished manuscripts since 2014. Backed by the NGO CODE (Canadian Organization for Development through Education) the award aims to “celebrate the literary achievements of Caribbean authors while improving young readers’ access to books that are engaging and meaningful to them”. Previous winners of the Burt Award were Imam Baksh for his manuscript Children of the Spider (2015), and A-diko Simba Gegele’s debut novel, All Over Again (2014). The award includes first, second and third place prizes valued at CAD$10,000, $7000 and $5000 respectively. Deadlines are in October and awards are presented at Bocas.

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 2015

Retreat, Compete, Fete, Repear: 15 Literary Adventures for 2016

Lignum Vitae Writing Awards are the new kids on the block but they’ve entered with a splash, bringing a trio of substantial cash prizes to Jamaican authors. The triad includes the Jean D’Costa prize for children’s literature, the Vic Reid prize for young adult literature and the Una Marson award for adult literature. Staged biennially, this award won’t be available again until 2017 but with prizes valued at JMD $250,000 (for the Vic Reid and Jean D’Costa prizes) and JMD$500,000 (for the Una Marson) they’re well worth the wait. The Wasafiri New Writing Prize, run by the UK-based quarterly literary Journal Wasafiri, came to be in 2009. The prize is open to anyone around the world who has not yet published a complete work. Prizes are offered in fiction, poetry and life writing. With a July deadline, entries usually open in February. Winners of receive £300 plus publication. After you’ve crafted the magnum opus and copped your award – what next? Time to celebrate with some good old-fashioned literary festivals. Heck, festivals are also a great place for you to meet authors and get inspired to write that magnum opus.

Festivals Each year the Caribbean plays host to a diverse array of lit fests, reaching across genre and geographical boundaries to intrigue the intellect and tickle the fancy. Stumped for ideas for your next vacation? Plan your trip around these hotspots of literary indulgence. In 2016, Jamaica will offer up two literary, fests, and though they are extremely, different, we’re keeping them together (and that way you get a braawta). The Calabash International Literary Festival in Treasure Beach, St. Elizabeth, is the oldest lit fest in the English, speaking Caribbean and attracts the largest audiences who flock to the black sands and great vibes. The now biennially staged three-day celebration of words was started in 2001 with the poetically licensed ambition of having a “the biggest little festival in the biggest little island in the world”. With their ability to draw headline names, and the rustic, rootsy beauty of Jakes Resort framing all discussions Calabash has featured Nobel Laureates, Pulitzer prize winners and a host of other celebrated writers. The 2016 staging of Calabash will run from June 3-5. The Kingston Book Festival, (March 5 – 12, 2016) is a hybrid creature that offers up a literary festival and fair, with lots of trade and learning opportunities mixed in. Offering up eight days and nights of literary action across the city, the festival has featured, workshops, networking events as well as readings

SUSUMBA’SBOOKBAG December 2015

Retreat, Compete, Fete, Repear: 15 Literary Adventures for 2016

in the streets, rum bars and prisons. The KBF prides itself on not only catering to high brow literature, but mixes in the business and pleasure of books of all kinds. Sponsored by the National Gas Company, the Bocas Lit Fest is Trinidad and Tobago’s premier annual literary festival. It’s a sprawling three-story affair spanning five days each in Port-of-Spain, Tobago and San Fernando, affording writers and readers the chance to engage in a global discussion of Caribbean subjects. The Bocas Lit Fest is more than just literature: it offers film screenings, workshops and performances – a space for writers to share and hone the craft of storytelling. Over in Barbados – the third staging of the BIM Lit Fest is slated for 2016. Another biennial occasion, the BIM Lit Fest was launched in 2012 and has come into its own as sprawling melee of book-fairmeets-carnival for the creatively curious. The 2014 staging featured a life-sized Anansi complete with spider web, wading through the crowd alongside visiting literati like Edward Baugh, Erna Brodber and Vladimir Lucien much to the delight of children and grown-ups alike. Of course if you can’t stand the thought of waiting two years for your favourite festival to happen again the Nature Island Literary Festival in Dominica is an annual event that takes place the first weekend in August. The NILF encourages local talent and promotes a literary culture, providing a laid back, almost intimate atmosphere, for multicultural exchange through readings, competitions and workshops. Being set against the verdant backdrop of the ‘nature isle’, which past NILF chairman Alwin Bully described as its most distinctive feature. The St. Martin Book Fair, a multilingual event, will enter its 13th annual staging in 2016. Last year’s event had workshops in French, English and Kwéyòl and featured visiting writers from India (Tishani Doshi) as well as Caribbean nationals such as St. Lucia’s Vladimir Lucien and Haiti’s Andre Fouad. There’s no word yet on the 2016 instalment, but it’s worth it to keep your calendars open. 2016 is the year to rekindle your love affair with literature. Next year promises to be a whirlwind of words, in the best possible way. So it’s time to write, retreat, compete, fete… and repeat.

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