Ubaldimir Guerra
Course Title: Caribbean Poetry
Topic: Intertextuality in Caribbean Literature
Duration: 2 – 75 minute class sessions
Primary text: Kamau Brathwaite: The Voice of African Presence, Ngugi wa Thiong’o
Supplementary texts:
Selected poetry of Aime Cesaire
Selected poetry of Kamau Brathwaite
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Matigari by Ngugi wa Thiong’o
In the Castle of My Skin by George Lamming
A Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
Audio: Lee Scratch Perry’s Super Ape record, turntable, speaker
Teaching Method: Socratic Seminar
Learning Outcomes: —(1) to explore ideas about Kamau Brathwaite’s creative process;
——————————————-(2) to co-create a poem from this exploration
Participants: Professor Joshua and his 12 students
Session One: Socratic Seminar
Scratched across the board’s blackness,
these words
circle around
a sketch of
Campbell’s monomythical structure:
Construct knowledge,
Intertextuality, Visualize
Synthesize, Contextualize
Professor Joshua instructs:
Now class,
open your texts
lift your desks
and form a circle
Let’s contextualize,
visualize and discuss
the renaming ceremony
from Edward
to Kamau
from Bridgetown
to the University of Nairobi
back to UWI
in 1972
as examined by Ngugi
in his Kamau Brathwaite: The Voice of African Presence
‘Twas
Professor Edward
RSVP
to Professor Ngugi
decolonizing curriculum
with thunder drums of
orature
Question: How do the events around Brathwaite’s visit to Nairobi University in 1972 exemplify orality and intertextuality in Caribbean and African literature?
1 hour of student discussion
15 minutes of Professor Joshua’s synthesis
and instructions for Session 2
Session 2: Co-creation of poem
Professor Joshua reaches into his briefcase
pulls out a record
rises from his chair
lifting the record,
he chants:
My 12 students,
last session
was seminar on
intertextuality
Ngugi invokes Kamau
as mau mau oral warrior
and “connecting spirit”
Give thanks for your words
This session we take
word, sound orality
and co-create
a coral scripture
see this record
scratched upon its body
across 10 tracks,
this is the blood of Zion
Take it
and listen to it
Let the blood and bass of Zion
course through your veins
When the needle
drops on the vinyl
of this almighty record
engineered by his
royal highness,
the dub specialist
himself, Sir Lee Scratch Perry
write to this body of bass
write until the fading
of its static denouement
When you are called upon,
Give voice to this poem,
“It Bring Back Love”
“It Bring Back Love” by Professor Joshua and his 12 disciples
Petra:
Don’t fall to the pressure
like okonkwo
drumming from the congo
Andrew:
Ride the wave
like wa thiong’o
Tomas:
matigari return the pressure
in pen like Aimé
Giacomina:
in Paris
to Martinique
Juan:
for our history time
now
Philippa:
black sun
rising up time
now
Bartholomew:
for the people
Mattea:
diamond fire
drum drumming
now
Thaddaeus:
sync in your
sound like
sycorax sound
on eternal sax
Simone:
tilt the axis
James:
around joyous sound
verse clapping
Jude:
it bring back
love
Professor Joshua’s consecration:
do this in memory of
our ancestors’ ascension
from middle passage
dismemberment
end of session 2
there is no end
tomorrow evening
come equipped for our
trip to blue hole
where pressure drops
and our lesson extends
to an outdoor network
Pressure drops
Responsorial psalm:
A reading of excerpts from
Kamau Brathwaite’s Rights of Passage,
Middle Passages and Elegguas
recited into the mouth of
a network of caves
at St. Herman’s blue hole
off the Hummingbird Highway
Echo response:
At nightfall
the pressure drops
the pressure drops
like thunder cloud
erasing light
lighting up the night
and when the pressure drops
the pressure drops
you beat the bass
you beat the bass
until dub mek the bass
pull sound
from landscape
landscape rush to
bass
shift plates
and mek space
for the coral
dream
to bloom
blooming sound
blooming wave
a tidal one
a hurricane jam
bring back the islands
and carry on
with your song
Ubaldimir Guerra was born in Belize City, Belize on September 17, 1980. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Belize and a Master of Arts degree in English with a concentration in Multicultural and Transnational Literature from East Carolina University, North Carolina. He has been a full-time lecturer in the Faculty of Education and Arts at the University of Belize since 2006, where he teaches courses in literature and composition. His research and teaching interests include Literature and Healing, Caribbean Literature, Belizean Literature, African Literature, Literary Theory and creative writing. He is currently working on a collection of poetry and a novel.
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