Kamau Brathwaite—the famed Caribbean poet, historian and philosopher—is one of this year’s recipients of the Caribbean Philosophical Association’s Nicolás Guillén Lifetime Achievement Award. Unable to travel for medical reasons, Dr. Brathwaite sent his latest installment of the following poem, whose first version was read to Nicolás Guillén when he visited the University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica, in September 1974. Rowan Ricardo Phillips, whose book of poems Heaven is one of the 2019 Nicolás Guillén Outstanding Book winners, read the poem at the Caribbean Philosophical Association’s awards ceremony on June 6, 2019.
The poem is offered here in its entirety.
Word Making Man
poem for Nicolás Guillén in Xaymaca/UWI Mona Sept 1974
Sir,
not in ‘Sir’
but in compañero
as you wd prefer it in hispañol
i have not yet been to cuba
& do not know the language of yr oradores
& as you said
‘some of us are champions
from the provinces, others
lo son olímpicos. & some of us
are nothing’—you will forgive me if i quote you again—not even oradores’
but i know that we are watching in a long circle for the dawn
& that the ruling class does not wait at bus-stops
& i know that we are watching in a long circle for the fire
& that our compradores do not ladle soup out of the yabba
in camagüey
ave maría
católica
silversmith turned silverfish . your father
in the leaves of the spanish classics . metallic needlework
in a tropical of paper . turblethumb thimbleprint journalist who divined
the omens of martí
when he was shot—fusilamiento
you became a snake
circling circling circling renewing yr cycle of certainty
& you awoke to sleepy horses
sleepy snocone vendors
to hazy drunkards staggering to their homes
you tripped you cried you stumbled
on the dreams of those far-off days:
nicotine lópez, yr pharmacist & friend,
the town clerk, cores, and the cop who died, his name like caanan
what’s his name?
& serafín toledo. blacksmith steel-lightning tailor
‘& the school desk w/ the pen-knife scars’
‘beneath a sky of fireflies & stars’
& we all learn
guitarra
we all learn
mayombe-bombe-mayombé
mayombe-bombe-mayombé
that one does not kill a brother
that one does not kill a brother
that one does not kill a brother
& look how sensemaya he is dead!
Now we rock-steady safely in the orisha of our dreams
& yr name has become the sunsum of our ancestors
to the pale solons of the lippi song you brought the son
w/ the broad boa of the conquistadore violin you bent the tree
jack Johnson kid chocolate mohammed ali
them jazzers w/ cow-punches in their smiles
the stylish patent-leather shoes, the creaking
downstairs down the stares from broadway stretching
out ‘its snout, its moist enormous mout
to lick & glut upon our canefields’ vital blood’
black little rock . the mau mau . emmett till
guevara & the beaten skulls of jackson & lumumba
you have whispered it all, you have uttered it all
coriolan of revolution, plankton of melt & plangent syllables
sunrise lucumi sparkle
against yr teeth of joy
sus dientes de jubilo
amerika laughs
west indies west indies west indies ltd
*
but suddenly in the night of possibility
it turns to the wall in its creaking bed of dollars
west indies west indies west indies unlimited
& yr voice rises like the moon
above the day of pigs . above the choruses of
who is it? who is it not?
the negro
who is it? who is it not?
my hunger
who is it? who is it not?
i&i talkin to ya
& the sea between us yields its secrets
silver into pellables into sheets of sound
that bear our pain & spume & salt & john coltrane
sayin xângo
‘no
not no
not bad
not bad . not velly bad’
and
yes
si yes
bien
si well
si velly well
*
so that we learn w/ you the pleasure
of walking w/ our roots across the boundary
owners herein of all there is to see
owners herein of what we must believe
of what our hands encompass as we dream
*
so that together we say wind
& understand its history of ghosts
together we say fire
& again there is a future in those sparks
together, comrade, compañero, friend
me seh this is our land & know at last it is our home
now mine forever & so yours . amigo
ours
‘with the vast splendour of the sunshine & the sunflower(s) & the stars’
Presented to the Caribbean Philosophical Association
6 June 2019. Providence, Rhode island
by Kamau Brathwaite
in appreciation of the Award to him of the Nicolás Guillén
Lifetime Achievements Award 2019
Born in Barbados, Caribbean poet and scholar Edward Kamau Brathwaite was educated at Harrison College in Barbados and Pembroke College in Cambridge. He earned his PhD in philosophy from the University of Sussex. Co-founder of the Caribbean Artists Movement, Brathwaite is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including Elegguas (2010), the Griffin International Poetry Prize winner Slow Horses (2005), Ancestors (2001), Middle Passages (1992), and Black + Blues (1976). His first three collections, Rights of Passage (1967), Masks (1968), and Islands (1969), have been gathered into The Arrivants: A New World Trilogy (1973). He is also the author of Our Ancestral Heritage: A Bibliography of the Roots of Culture in the English-speaking Caribbean (1976) and Barbados Poetry: A Checklist: Slavery to the Present (1979).
For more on Brathwaite and selections of his poetry, see: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/kamau-brathwaite
