A Genealogy of Resistance: And Other Essays PDF
Preview A Genealogy of Resistance: And Other Essays
* V»l »» llll 11111«. hiin around eight a.m. They would then go down to the valley long slender bamboo pole with a gullea (a special knife used I pods from die tree). The cocoa trees are not very tall and from the sun by tall, towering trees called Inunon grown specially to shade the cocoa trees. My mo gave tin* British for what they did to the coco hated them for destroying the never came back to wliat it ' hat die prices were deliberate! I the British to help Germany I their gain—the British, I in were prepared to help Gi some of her losses in We have never reco time up to this day. Ai during that period and it for us to make ends meet. \X gardening and growing vege as which we sold to brin wc could to buy odier diings very very hard times. Fortun; Monitor in the school. Picki hen about three days to cut op br gully r hous« and le rd be cover is and bags foi vs. There was a o f after the bean diey w o iH put on this ta first brother, who wras mu R E S S T A N to the seinina church. The V and in some lauds in the West Indies. For some reason ininn was sent off, they began to charge fees for liis educ? not the usual procedure. My parents had to fin . - small amount \i e had fib ns and o t h e r e s s a y s id we who were left behi inensely from that. The beans would thinly on the rack and the hot sun would would take about three days. C>f course one 1 for rain. If it rained the beans had to be taken up c ered. When the beans were dry they be colour. The boys would return the beans were ready t Original frorr^tm.r *v>^|jy know what the i UNIVERSJTY OF.MTCHI w as a bbiigg ssttrraain on my'parents, and they we A GENEALOGY OF RESISTANCE and Other Essays OTHER BOOKS BY M. NOURBESE PHIUP Salmon Courage (Williams Wallace) She Tries Her Tongue; Her Silence Softly Breaks (Women's Press, England) Harriet's Daughter IWomen's Press, Toronto; Heinemann, England) Looking for Livingstone: An Odyssey of Silence (The Mercury Press) Showing Grit (Poui Publications) Frontiers: Essays and Writings on Racism and Culture (The Mercury Press) A GENEALOGY OF RESISTANCE and Other Essays BY M. NOURBESE PHILIP THE MERCURY PRESS HT \ 5 l \ Copyright © 1997 by M. NourbeSe Philip M l ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, with the exception of brief passages in reviews. Any request for photocopying or other reprographic copying of any part of this book must be directed in writing to the Canadian Reprography Collective (CANCOPY). m The publisher gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. The publisher further acknowledges the assistance of the Multiculturalism Directorate of the Secretary of State in the publication of this book. Cover design by Gordon Robertson Edited by Beverley Daurio Composition and page design by Task Printed and bound in Canada by Metropole Litho Printed on acid-free paper First Edition 1 2 34 5 01 00 9998 97 Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Philip, M. NourbeSe A Genealogy of resistance : essays Includes bibliographical references ISBN I -55128-047-7 1. Race. 2. Culture. I. Title HT1521.N68 1997 305.8 C97-932040-2 Represented in Canada by the Literary Press Group Distributed in Canada by General Distribution Services The Mercury Press 2569 Dundas Street West Toronto, Ontario CANADA M6P 1X7 5-f PfVE //-03-^g For the island Tobago Ti Miss Maam the ancestors named and unnamed Parkinson Philip-Yeates and Undine Philip Ase ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author acknowledges the financial assistance of the Multicultu- ralism Directorate of the Secretary of State. With the exception of “A Genealogy of Resistance” all these essays have been published in the following journals, magazines and anthologies: Journals: Orion, American Book Review, A Journal of Feminist Theory: Women and Performance, Brick, Trivia, Tessera: Toward Feminist Narratology, Anales Del Caribe, Open Letter, and the Trinidad and Tobago Review; Anthologies: Writing It Down for James, Chain 2, Feminist Measures: A Poetics of Criticism, Out of Kumbla: Caribbean Women and Literature CONTENTS A Genealogy of Resistance 9 Whose Idea Was It Anyway? 31 The Absence of Writing or How I Almost Became a Spy Earth and Sound: The Place of Poetry 57 Dis Place— The Space Between 74 The Habit of: Poetry, Rats and Cats 113 Ignoring Poetry 120 Notes on the Completion of Potentiality 126 Father Tongue 128 South of the Border 133 Cuban Journal 149 A Piece of Land Surrounded 161 Dragon Come Down, Dove Gorn Up: The Poetics of Silence and the Unvoiced 174 African Roots and Continuities: Race, Space and the Poetics of Moving 201 A GENEALOGY OF RESISTANCE Et c’est l’heure, O Poète de décliner ton nom, ta naissance et ta race. And the time is come, O Poet to declare your name, your birth and your race. — St.-John Perse, Exil The writer has a place in his age. Each word has an echo, as does each silence. —Jean Paul Sartre The white fathers told us, “I think, therefore, I am” and the black mother within each of us— the poet— whispers in our dreams, I feel, therefore I can be free. Poetry coins the language to express and chart this revolutionary demand. — Audre Lorde I will begin with him. Not with the word. Which was. In the beginning. I shall speak of him who every evening with slow and careful hands brought light to displace the darkness. Mesmerized, I watch the delicate bag of white gauze fill, glow bright white under the slow and steady pumping. The light grows stronger and brighter until its harsh glare has chased away the encroaching blackness. Where was it kept during the day? The kerosene lantern. What colour was it? The only memory is of that daily ritual: my father bringing light to the home. A house perched on the sea shore. On the coast of a tiny island. Tobago. In an even tinier village. A fishing village. With an impressive name: Plymouth. Named no doubt for that much larger, busier Plymouth. So many thousands of miles away. A genealogy of names— Plymouth. Scarborough. Les Couteaux. L’Anse Fourmi. Having everthing to do with those who in their brutal naming obliterated others. Names and people. 9
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