Trench Town Rock

"He is a poet, he is a theorist of language – he is extraordinarily accomplished and gifted in both those ways – and he is, in both in his poetry and in his critical writing, again, always putting this very particular individual voice and sensibility on a landscape of Caribbean history that is centuries long. Caribbean history obviously takes in European, North American, and South American history. That also means that he is extraordinary at working and playing with all kinds of languages. There’s what he calls ‘nation language’ – the indigenous languages of the Caribbean – and the languages that emerged and evolved as Europeans settled the Caribbean. And I say languages , in the plural, because in addition to the African-based and Indian-based languages, there are variations on English, on French, on Spanish. So, all of these vernaculars – some of which then become formal languages – are there. He uses many of them as a poet and he certainly always takes them into account as a critic. Exactly. I actually first read a shortened form of it in one of John D’Agata’s essay collections, and, yes, it is taking this charged period of political, legal and illegal violence – murder, corruption etc., – going on in Jamaica at that time and documenting plus re-imaging it in various literary and media forms. He was based in what was Bob Marley’s neighbourhood. Personal narrative opens out and becomes journalism, there are transcripts of radio interviews, and there is reportage. It’s extremely taut and dramatic, with robberies and murders and gunshots. It’s really almost like a noir novel. There’s poetry, too, and folklore, with Anansi the spider. There’s this other level of hybridity because he is there, he is living in this housing project with friends, but he is also an interrogator, a reporter, and he’s a reporting device at times. And then, at other times, he is the dominating voice and, of course, it’s all juxtaposed and collaged and montaged wildly. Yes, because popular culture is part of our collective unconscious and consciousness; one way or another we are all embedded in popular culture. And it increases – it intensifies – as technology becomes more ubiquitous. We are all as embedded in forms of popular culture as we are in our homes or schools or whatever. Brathwaite is a wonderful example of that. He is also a high art poet, if you will, who is fully cognizant of several august traditions of poetry. So, certainly, as writers, we’re always trafficking in the more rarefied culture – art, literature… what we traditionally call ‘high culture’ – at the same time as we are trafficking in these increasingly multiplying forms of popular culture. “Popular culture is part of our collective unconscious and consciousness; one way or another we are all embedded in it. And it increases – it intensifies – as technology becomes more ubiquitous” This is not new, this is modernism as well as postmodernism. Their relationships to each other, how they inflect and alter each other, is absolutely critical and it’s very fertile material for a writer because it gives you multiple points of view, the way a piece of music with many harmonies and rhythms does. What’s new, I hope, is how the perspectives, the inflections, change."