By Mel Cooke, Freelance WriterWESTERN BUREAU:
DR. CYNTHIA Wilson continued her Caribbean round of book launching at the Alhambra Inn, Tucker Avenue, St. Andrew, last Thursday to accolades from colleagues and well-wishers.
The Hibiscus Bears A Blue Flower and Same Sea- Another Wave, Dr. Wilson's collections of poetry and prose respectively, have already been launched in her home country, Barbados, as well as Guyana and Trinidad. There was also a launch in Washington, USA.
For its turn, Jamaica was treated to readings from both books by Dr. Wilson, as well as insights into the lady and her work by Professor the Honourable Rex Nettleford and Barbara Gloudon respectively.
DRIVEN
Dr. Wilson, described by Nettleford as being "really driven by the exercise of the creative imagination", read poetry first, beginning with Birth Pangs ("giving birth to yourself is always painful"). In an extensive reading, she honoured My People ("how luminous are the eyes of my people/like the moon, mysterious") and the defiant Talk Yu Talk.
Direct was from an experience with a friend expressing her raw desire for a very handsome man, instructing Wilson to "just go direct/tell him I want him". Love Song 1, 2, 3 preceded Woman Stand Up, a call to speak out. "I will stand up and scream my outrage to the world," Dr. Wilson said, concluding "I am a woman/you will respect me/or witness the destruction of the world".
LENGTH OF TIME
Tall Woman was for her grandnan, while Relief expressed "love must do it/for there are not enough graves". "I do not feel old, but I am sometimes surprised by the length of time I have lived," she said, before ending the poetry reading with A Prayer.
She was back with one story from Same Sea-Another Wave after keynote speaker The Honourable Barbara Gloudon, who noted in her overview of the work that "I love what she wrote of the early days." And Dr. Wilson went back to her maybe fictional early days, noting that "all the stories have a kernel of truth, but they are not autobiographical".
The story went back to the days before starch came in a spray can, when a little girl determined to bathe in her personal bath pan found herself itching all over when she came into contact with the residue of yam peelings.
The pain became pleasure, though, from the soothing dressing and comforting treatment that she received, so much so that "I was so happy I thought of bathing in the yam water again".
And it led to a getting something new as well, as "the next time my mother went to town she brought me a bath basin just like my brother's only mine was pink!"
Sean Richards on guitar with Redemption Song and David Aarons on steelpan with Is This Love entertained the gathering.
