- WINSTON SILL/FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER
Ishion Hutchinson reads at a reading and book signing by authors in the Calabash chapbook series, held at the Sugardaddies restaurant in Liguanea, St. Andrew, last August.Tanya Batson-Savage, Freelance Writer
WHILE THE awesome complexities of the Nobel Laureate continue to inspire, awe and dread in the heart of intrepid students pursuing their degrees in literature, Ishion Hutchinson is one of those whom Derek Walcott's words called to poetry.
Hutchinson is one of the six poets whose chapbooks were published by the Calabash Writers Series last year, following participation in the writing workshops which provided fellowships to 20 writers. Hutchinson's is entitled Bryan's Bay.
When asked how he came to poetry, he corrects that poetry came to him. He explains that having been one of those boys "ostracised from the playing field" and thus spent more time with girls than with boys, he soon came to books. Then one evening while in the library in Port Antonio, just before the library closed, he had his first close encounter with Derek Walcott.
"I started reading that book and I felt like a poet," he says. "I remember leaving the library and feeling just weird, new," Hutchinson said. Since those days toward the end of school at Titchfield High, he has been following that feeling.
As highlighted in the Bryan's Bay collection, Hutchinson's poetry is quite often political, tackling issues of history and power.
"I just feel that my place as a poet has to do with the public and engaging history and things that have gone before," he says. Yet sometimes his work does get personal, though he explains that his presence is consciously subtle. "I mostly would craft myself in the piece as something else, a kind of wayward image that does not get much attention," he says.
At only 22 years old and going through his final year at the UWI, Mona campus, he is still in the early throes of development. As such, he explains that though he is most proud of the title poem, 'Bryan's Bay', he has since found that many of the pieces could use further revision.
GREEK LETTER
Interestingly, Hutchinson admits that he is now completely ashamed of the poem Walcott had inspired him to write on that fateful evening. Dubbed Greek Letter, the poem was a letter to Walcott.
Now having moved from Stony Hill, Port Antonio, to Kingston, his feet are about to meander around New York City where he will pursue a Master of Fine Arts in poetry, having obtained a fellowship in creative writing at New York University.
Indeed, since his first encounter with Walcott's voice, Hutchinson has learnt that crafting a poem takes time and multiple revisions. "When I do write, the energy is always there to produce a lot at once," he says. "So my struggle is to go back and make the words gel, and that's the process that I have the most trouble with."
Hutchinson explains that he is looking forward to this experience and has already begun to taste the possibilities. "Just the shift of space gives you energy for new work and to approach old work," he says. He points out that last week he went to a reading by Eduoard Glissant, which was a great experience. "I didn't say much," he says, "but it was a great vibe."
So with that in mind, he is about to step into a new verse of his life, with the words yet unwritten.
