My Black
and my Caribbean
walk into a room
and the air is
still
My Black breaks the silence first
and says: "Wassup, where you from, fam?"
to root itself in the present
where it has made a home for itself
in places meant to be its hell
He trusted me to break the word, crack
each segment open until the mystery expired.
Not so this morning. He stared bewildered
at the board, the back at me. “I never t’ought
dat word could be so small. F…i…x,”
he mused. “Dis word so small.”
How could his daily toil of hammer,
saw and nails; an old lady’s reckoning
of last month’s window
against the patching of a roof this week—
how could her life of sacrifice
and his of labour, sweat and boiling sun
be totalled up in this small word?
Barbadian poet and performer Winston Farrell has been hosting poetry pop-ups in Golden Square, Bridgetown, throughout 2022. Linda M. Deane, who took part in February, offers this alternate take on the popular literary event. Photos by S. Devonish. (Click the photos and scroll using the arrows.)
Reprinted from centralbank.org.bb. Ronald Williams is the Top Entrant in the 24th Frank Collymore Literary Endowment Competition > Central Bank of Barbados > News
RONALD A. WILLIAMS emerged as the top entrant in the 24th Frank Collymore Literary Endowment (FCLE) Competition. This was announced during a scaled-down in-person awards ceremony at Frank Collymore Hall.
No kites up in the air this year
No singing angels’ majestic climb
No raging bulls
No dancing round-kite
Square-kite
Box-kite
Not a bat-kite in the blue sky
Little ones
Distracted by a different story
Backs turned to this ascension
Too busy
Plugged into their PlayStations
YouTube fingers google walking portable brains
If only on the outside
I am fat
so I cannot accept that
I am worthy
I know deep down
my bulging belly labels me obese
and I see
my heavier hips generate the most stares
I realize
my body is riddled with cellulite
and I understand
the mirror can only present its truth
I acknowledge that
my value is measured primarily as a number on a scale
so no one can make me believe
I am beautiful
if only on the inside
“Everything that happens in the universe has an impact on who I am, how I live, and what I write: thought, word, deed. Everything I think, I write, I speak has an impact on the world; like the...