WHITE HOUSES: Words after reading Safiya Sinclair’s How to Say Babylon

I loved my father regardless, and I burned with resentment and rage at the unfairness of his kingdom, while I never failed to find comfort in the island he showed me, where nothing was off limits to me, nothing denied.
Just conform, Diana, my mother said to me when I fought with my father. Conform.

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Brief and Candid Notes on Artificial Archive

An image conjured in 2023 by a text-to image generator of “a 19th-century Caribbean person writing” is not likely to be a historically accurate representation in every regard, and is not itself a historical document. However, it is a prompt for imagination that might get a Caribbean high-schooler thinking more about the life of a dark-skinned ancestor than simply actions relating to the reductive category of “Slave”.

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The Art of Belonging

Whether intentionally or not, Born Ya transcends a straightforward telling of her life story; it is also the staking of a claim to a place that more and more doesn’t want her. It. Embedded within the narrative, by my read, is MacMillan’s attempt to assert her Jamaican identity while also considering, both overtly and implicitly, the challenges of being a white person in a predominantly black country, where racial dynamics are in constant flux.

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El Cuco

The denizens of La Malamuerte were accustomed to the occasional wandering tourist. Unsuspecting visitors who strayed within the establishment’s secluded walls usually stayed for a quick drink, so as not to be rude, then left. However, on this particular day, La Malamuerte became host to an group of obnoxious 20-somethings from Georgia who thought it would be fun to mock the locals and cause a scene.

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Janoah and de Soulboat

Dandy dance till him salt-and-pepper mohawk dripping sweat. When him see me, him flash him gold teeth. The Devil’s red mask is back on his face. The day get as hot as hell. Me hands get so sweaty me bible slip. And though I standing in the sanctified body of Jaheim Murray, born-again christian, I am Warwick again, back on the battlefield.

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Charlemagne Fontaine Donkey Foot

New mothers check and count toes and fingers, but I am sure that Miss Rosette felt for the hoof. And there it would have been, a teeny ball of flesh like his human foot, except there were no toes and a tiny dent. Over time, that ball would harden into a donkey foot. His little left knee poked out backwards, the small thigh flesh meeting a soft clump of muscle that would become the other half of his bottom. Miss Rosette listened for the sound of his human foot and the clop of his hoof on the wooden floors of the house when he started to walk.

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The Generator or Unlikely Beneficiaries of the Treaty of Breda

But the wind always blows from the east in Anguilla, and sometimes we have had to go for weeks on end without the privilege of information, without the relative freedom awarded to us by a change in the course of the sound waves. During these grim weeks of silence we have continued our petty lives outside the boundaries of time – an insignificant group of refugees struggling to stay together beyond the scope of the victorious.

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Laurel’s Secret

Every morning and every evening Avó came out of her kitchen, synchronizing her daily rhythm to attend to the needs of the garden. She greeted each plant one by one because who else did she have to talk with these days? The scantily dressed telenovela stars on TV hardly minded what suggestion she had to offer. The radio jockeys powered on with too much reggaeton regardless of her protests.

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November 3, 2023
PREE 11 Brawta starts uploading today with amazing new content from Loretta Collins-Klobah, Carol B. Duncan, Rodell Warner, Nancy Anne Miller,
Eugene Speakes, Dwight Thompson, Diana Thorburn and Yzahira R. Valle García

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PREE 11

FICTION

 THE CAY
 Ethan Knowles

THE VENGEANCE OF MOKO
Gilberte Farah

PORK
Ryan Cecil Jobson

THE OLD GUARDS ARE CAMPING OUTSIDE
Alicia Valasse-Polius

LAUREL’S SECRET
Mikayla Vieira Ribeiro

THE GENERATOR OR UNLIKELY BENEFICIARIES OF THE TREATY OF BREDA
Montague Kobbé

POETRY

FROM SPAIN TOWN TO OUTER SPACE AND OTHER POEMS
Mbala Mgabo

MOORING
Shauna M. Morgan

STREETSWEEPER
Jenelle Samuels

REWILDING
Luke Elliott

HOLY BLUES AND OTHER POEMS
John Robert Lee

ART-ICLES

DARK EXPOSURE: ROBERTA STODDART’S THE BERTHA ROOM
Isis Semaj-Hall 

SURVIVING THE DREAM
Roberta Stoddart

BRAWTA

POETRY

THE MOUNTAIN THAT COULD BE EATEN; DAO CHANG
Loretta Collins-Klobah

MAD HATTERS; LEAKY; BERMUDA GOMBEY COSTUME
Nancy Anne Miller

FICTION

JANOAH AND DE SOULBOAT
Dwight Thompson

CHARLEMAGNE FONTAINE DONKEY FOOT
Carol B. Duncan

LA UBER LLORONA
Yzahira R. Valle García

EL CUCO
Eugene Speakes

ESSAY

THE ART OF BELONGING
Diana Thorburn

BRIEF AND CANDID NOTES ON ARTIFICIAL ARCHIVE
Rodell Warner

WHITE HOUSES: WORDS AFTER READING SAFIYA SINCLAIR’S
HOW TO SAY BABYLON

Diana McCaulay

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