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Caribbean History of the United States
“The United States has written the white history of the United States. It now needs to write the black, Latino, Indian, Asian and Caribbean history of the United States.” -Carlos Fuentes
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Nandi Keyi Playwright of the Week
Nandi Keyi was born in London, England to parents from Trinidad & Tobago. Like many children of first generation Caribbean immigrants eking out a living in 1960s England, Nandi was dispatched, at age five, to spend the rest of her childhood years with relatives in the Caribbean. Later she had a decade long journalism and theater career, writing hundreds of articles for major daily and community newspapers in North America before turning her attention to creative writing. Her critically-acclaimed plays have been produced and anthologized. Her essay “Still Shipwrecked on the Shores of My African Self,” was published by the international peer review journal, “Changing English: Studies in Research and…
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Derek Walcott Inspirational Plays
Cry for a Leader, produced in St. Lucia, 1950. Senza Alcum Sospetto (radio play), broadcast 1950, produced as Paolo and Francesca, in St. Lucia, 1951. (And director) Henri Christophe: A Chronicle in Seven Scenes (first produced in Castries, West Indies, 1950; produced in London, England, 1952), Barbados Advocate (Bridgetown, Barbados), 1950. Robin and Andrea, published in Bim (Christ Church, Barados), 1950. [more…] Three Assassins, produced in St. Lucia, West Indies, 1951. The Price of Mercy, produced in St. Lucia, West Indies, 1951. (And director) Harry Dernier: A Play for Radio Production (produced in Mona, Jamaica, 1952; radio play broadcast as Dernier, 1952), Barbados Advocate (Bridgetown, Barbados), 1952. (And director) The Wine of the Country (produced in Mona, Jamaica, 1956), University College of the West Indies (Mona,…
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“IF WALLS COULD TALK” written & directed by David Tulloch
The Jamaican Gleaner reported IF WALLS COULD TALK is a must see for Caribbean goers. The play is a dramatic comedy that takes the audience into the lives and marriage of The Bailey’s. Melvin and Jennifer Bailey are owners of a struggling hardware store and married for eleven years. They have tried so many times to have children but to no avail. [more…] This is primarily because Jennifer suffers from a terminal condition known as uterine incompetence. What this does is to allow Jennifer to conceive but eventually she will have a miscarriage. Driven by guilt and her profound love for her husband whom she believes is ‘perfect’ and whom…
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Derek Walcott A Poet and a Visionary
He had an early sense of a vocation as a writer. In the poem “Midsummer” (1984), he wrote: “Forty years gone, in my island childhood, I felt that the gift of poetry had made me one of the chosen, that all experience was kindling to the fire of the Muse.” – Walcott At 14, Walcott published his first poem, a Miltonic, religious poem in the newspaper, The Voice of St Lucia. An English Catholic priest condemned the Methodist-inspired poem as blasphemous in a response printed in the newspaper. By 19, Walcott had self-published his two first collections with the aid of his mother, who paid for the printing: 25 Poems (1948)…
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Midsummer, Tobago
Broad sun-stoned beaches. White heat. A green river. A bridge, scorched yellow palms from the summer-sleeping house drowsing through August. Days I have held, days I have lost, days that outgrow, like daughters, my harbouring arms. Derek Walcott