"Mabrak": A Disappearing West Indian Classic?

Abstract

Bongo Jerry's &dquo;Mabrak&dquo; is as unequivocally West Indian a poem as one could wish. It could have come from nowhere but the West Indies; indeed, it could hardly have come from anywhere but Jamaica. It is by several criteria a very distinguished workprobably the finest Rastafarian poem, a crucial text for its historical moment, and the centre-piece of one of the fundamental literary controversies in the region, the debate set off by the Savacou anthology (1971) in which it was first published.' Yet there is something peculiar about the poem's status, and the peculiarity can most

What’s in a name? Circles of attention and critical sensibilities

“…As I have previously noted elsewhere, the exchange that followed Naipaul’s paper is now something of a legend in the history of Caribbean criticism, and the various debates, snipes, and exchanges that the event staged involved, in one capacity or another, most of the “big” names of that time (Donnell, 2006). The critic Kenneth Ramchand accused Brathwaite of “folking up” the criticism during the conference itself but even his damning response seemed rather tepid compared to that of Eric Roach (also Trinidadian) who published his Eurocentric riposte in the Trinidad Guardian : “We have been given the European languages and forms of culture — culture in the traditional, aesthetic sense, meaning the best that has been thought, said and done […] Are we going to tie the drum of Africa to our tails and bay like mad dogs at the Nordic world to which our geography and history tie us?” (Roach, 1971; qtd in Breiner, 1993: 2). Accounts even include the absent Walcott who was apparently warned to stay away due to “CULTURAL GORILLAS” (Brathwaite, 1994: 322).…”