Barbara Ellington, Lifestyle Editor
Kwame Dawes' 'Wisteria' is a ringside seat on the lives of the Deep South. - CONTRIBUTED
WISTERIA IS a slim volume of 41 poems by Professor Kwame Dawes, programming director of the Calabash International Literary Festival, the 2006 edition of which gets under way in Treasure Beach, St. Elizabeth, today.
Dawes' 11th collection gives poetry lovers a ringside seat on the lives of the Deep South and some of the memories buried in their subconscious. The book is a result of Dawes' '90s sojourn in the Sumter, South Carolina, and the in-depth conversations he had with the women who lived through a disturbing time.
The collection has five sections, 'Wisteria', 'Travelling Woman', 'Domestics', 'Vengeance' and 'Obituaries', and explores the concept of being truthful in a secretive society. A genius with words, Dawes delves into a subject area many would rather forget with beautifully crafted lines.
Dawes explains that the plant, which abounds in the American South, can overwhelm with its stunning purple colour and presence.
"But it is the aroma that I am seeking to evoke most in the title. Wisteria is about the way that southern politeness and decency are the perfume that mask the sordid truth of the past - the things that decent people do not want to think about, talk about or recall. There is something to be said for such decency, such politeness, but there is much to be said for truth," Dawes told The Gleaner.
FILLED WITH EMOTION
It is perhaps instructive that the title poem describes a woman engaged in a simple act of untying a handkerchief which holds so much and reveals so much when finally undone. The two-stanza poem is filled with such emotion and imagery one has to read it several times to absorb all it conveys. Like the plant, Wisteria represents a woman's ability to be many things at once.
Courting presents a universal theme of all that happens to a young girl with no control over her destiny. Like many of the era, the subject of this poem was poor and black in rural South Carolina and matured sooner than she was ready. It explores aspects of sexuality, marriage, childbirth and desire that were all thrust on this child-woman much to soon. The second stanza says it all:
"At fifteen, never dreamed
romance would come,
and I was right.
Never dreamed of dates,
movies, fancy restaurants.
and I was right.
Didn't miss much
cause you only miss
what you dreamed too much."
'God Don't Like Ugly' is from the second section of the book. It looks at how the ugliness of death and outward appearance can be transformed:
"They are angels of God,
But God don't like ugly at all
Here in 'Summer Country',
two things are sure,
folks will die their ugly deaths
and women
lapping up the magazines
won't ever feel pretty
enough for love
Me, I am too scared of the
cold flesh that don't
give back, don't move."
'Love Oil', in the third section of Wisteria, speaks to things familiar among black folks everywhere. Acts of love in small gestures abound in each line. Whether the giver of the gesture foolishly misdirects it is not important; it is the act which is.
Dawes explained that 'Love Oil' is dear to him and is, "My attempt to tell the difficult story of two people who I have come to care about a lot in Sumter, a mother and her daughter. They told me a story that the daughter remembers as shaping so much of how she struggled with the meaning of love in a racially charged world. It is a poem about how racism can affect even the love between mother and daughter."
Readers will find 'Love Oil' to be a a soothing, calm poem, which expresses love in simple actions such as shared pain, applying oil to soothe the body and ointment to ease arthritis. This is a poem to be enjoyed with music.
Dawes, a distinguished poet in residence at the University of South Carolina where he is director of the South Carolina Poetry Initiative and the University of South Carolina Arts Institute, will read in 'Mixed Doubles' with Lorna Goodison at the 2006 Calabash Festival tonight.
