I have never learnt the names of flowers. 
From beginning, my world has been a place
Of pot-holed streets where thick, sluggish gutters race
In slow time, away from garbage heaps and sewers
Past blanched old houses around which cowers
Stagnant earth. There, scarce green thing grew to chase
The dull-grey squalor of sick dust; no trace
Of plant save few sparse weeds; just these, no flowers.
One day, they cleared a space and made a park
There in the city’s slums; and suddenly
Came stark glory like lighting in the dark,
While perfume and bright petals thundered slowly.
I learnt no names, but hue, shape and scent mark
My mind, even now, with symbols holy
Dennis Craig
Long Mountain rise,
Lift you’ shoulder, blot the moon,
Black the stars, hide the skies,
Long Mountain, rise, lift you’ shoulder high.
Black of skin and white of gown,
Black of night and candle light
White against the black of trees,
And altar white against the gloom,
Black of mountain high up there,
Long Mountain rise,
Lift you’ shoulder, blot the moon,
Black the stars, black the sky.
Africa among the trees,
Asia with her mysteries,
Weaving white in flowing gown
Black long mountain looking down
Sees the shepherd and his flock
Dance and sing and wisdom mock
Dance and sing and falls away
All the civilized today
Dance and sing and fears let loose
Here the ancient gods that choose
Man for victim, man for hate,
Man for sacrifice to fate.
Hate and fear and madness black
Dance before the altar white.
Comes the circle closer still,
Shepherd weave your pattern old.
Africa Among The Trees
Asia With Her Mysteries.
Black Of Night And White Of Gown,
White Of Altar, Black Of Trees,
Swing De Circle Wide Again,
Fall And Cry, Me Sister Now.
Let De Spirit Come Again,
Fling Away De Flesh And Bone,
Let The Spirit Have A Home.
Grunting Low And In The Dark
White Of Gown And Circling Dance
Gone Today And All Control,
Power Of The Past Returns,
Africa Among The Trees,
Asia with her mysteries.
Black the stars, hide the sky,
Lift you’ shoulders, blot the moon
Long Mountain rise.
Sir Philip Sherlock
This week-end sees the opening of two plays, providing live theatre that has been relatively scarce on the Guyanese stage since the recent COVID lockdown, but also providing an occasion with glittering significance in another context. The production is presented by the University of Guyana in collaboration with the Theatre Guild of Guyana and is an interesting reminder of a close association between universities and the arts.
This association was profoundly demonstrated last month when the UG conferred an honorary doctorate upon a young but highly accomplished Guyanese-British movie actress Letitia Wright. But it has manifested itself in a number of other thought-provoking ways. The most recent is this production in the theatre. It is the performance of two plays – The Tramping Man by Ian McDonald and Duenne by Paloma Mohamed, both directed by UG Artist in Residence Henry Muttoo in a partnership with the Theatre Guild, an artistic institution.
Universities are known to enhance their image in ways such as these, establishing themselves as supporters of the arts, exemplars and recognisers of excellence, and as contributors to national and international culture. But this occasion also brings to mind an association that is not planned by universities, but is a noteworthy happenstance – that there have been four occasions when practicing artists have become Vice-Chancellors of Anglophone Caribbean universities.
One of the staged plays, Duenne, was written by Prof Paloma Mohamed, who also happens to be Vice-Chancellor of UG, attaining that accomplishment after quite a career in the arts. The play won the Guyana Prize for Literature in 1998, which was only one of many high points in her work as a writer and performer. She is in noble company. In total, two Vice-Chancellors of the University of the West Indies (UWI) and two of the UG have had this distinction. They are Rex Nettleford and Sir Philip Sherlock, both of UWI, and Prof Dennis Craig, along with Mohamed, of UG.
Mohamed reached a high point when she won the AN Sabga Caribbean Award for Excellence for her work in Arts and Letters. This had pulled together her accomplishments as a playwright, theatre director, actress, singer, poet and producer. She is Chairman of the Theatre Guild and was Artistic Director for Carifesta X in Guyana 2008. For many years she was at the top of the Guyanese theatre industry with a series of very popular plays, mainly comedies, while gaining added recognition for other types of drama. These include early plays such as a biography of Bob Marley and a later collection Caribbean Mythology and the Cultural Life, which includes Anansi’s Way, another Guyana Prize winner.
When Sherlock became Vice-Chancellor of UWI in 1964 he had already established himself in the arts, history and literature. He was a historian, a poet, folklorist, editor, educationist and researcher. He was among the leading Jamaican poets during the period when the rising local poetry was defining itself in the 1940s, influenced by the political and industrial movements with the struggles towards self government and independence. He continued in both pre-independence poetry in the 1950s and post-independence literature of the 1960s, additionally fueled by growing interest in the folk and grassroots.
His range of work was extensive, from the arts and letters to university administration before he became VC. He was a very prolific folklorist – he researched and published folklore and oral literature, which influenced his original writings. This included Anansi folktales and Amerindian myths as well as well as publications on the history of Jamaica. Sherlock made great contributions to development of the literary, historical and cultural arms of the Institute of Jamaica, and the creation and development of drama and the publication of Caribbean plays by the UCWI Extra Mural Department – work which was later taken over by playwright Errol Hill.
Sherlock was responsible for the building of the Creative Arts Centre (CAC) on the Mona Campus of UWI. Such was his contributions to the arts that the CAC was later named after him. It is now the Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts.
Dennis Craig was appointed VC at UG in 1991 after a very productive career at UWI, Mona in Education and administration and a Professorship in Linguistics. His primary work in the arts was as a poet and he rose to be among the prominent established poets in Guyanese literature. For a short while he was Chairman of the Guyana Prize before giving it up in 1995.
Several of his poems were published in various places, and he has the distinction of publishing one of the best known and most anthologized single poems in the West Indies. That is the sonnet titled “Flowers”. Eventually he collected his poems and published them as Near the Seashore, winning the Guyana Prize Best First Book in 1998.
The following is the citation by Stewart Brown, Chairman of the Jury that included Mark McWatt.
“Dennis Craig’s collection Near The Seashore… was a real discovery. Those of us who read the literary journals of the region had come across occasional poems by Dennis Craig over a couple of decades or more but not known that those were just the outcrops of a substantial poetic territory. What emerges from this collection is a mature poetic voice making sense of personal – and sometimes more public – issues in lines and images that are both measured and wonderfully evocative. There is a simplicity and directness about the language of Craig’s poetry which is refreshing; no overblown descriptions or loud assertions, rather a quiet engagement with places and people and ideas. To write simply, as anyone who has tried to do it will know, is the hardest task of all… This is the work of a real poet”.
Rex Nettleford was the greatest of this company of artistic VCs. He took over the leadership of UWI in the 1990s, serving until retirement in 2005. Even before that he was Chairman of the CAC at Mona, where he served as head of Extra Mural and Trade Union Education. Nettleford was a cultural icon, producing ground-breaking work as one of the founders of what is now known as Cultural Studies, marked by his publication of Mirror, Mirror: Identity, Race and Protest in Jamaica (1970).
His fame as an artist went furthest in his capacity as a dancer and choreographer, coupled with theatre director. Nettleford founded and led the superlatively acclaimed National Dance Theatre Company (of Jamaica) (NDTC) from the late 1960s and was still dancing during his time as VC. Himself as choreographer and his company, rose to be the best in the Caribbean with high international acclaim. He made contributions to the annual LTM Jamaica Pantomime Musical and the setting up of the Jamaica School of Dance.
Nettleford’s work and influence in modern dance in the Caribbean are legendary, and the dance “Pocomania” is among the most memorable. His series of choreographies which also include “Kumina” and “Mayal” remain most important to Caribbean dance.
