Forging connections: anthologies, arts collectives, and the politics of inclusion

The changing social and political landscape of twentieth-century Britain catalysed a remarkable rise in collaborative activity by artists and activists of black and Asian heritage. Creative communities began to gather in both local and regional contexts, with the aim of sharing resources and securing an audience. This chapter records some of these many activities, tracing the groups’ genesis, manifest objectives, and key contributions. It argues that anthologising should be understood as a specifically motivated activity. Literary anthologies of poetry and fiction served to showcase the diversity of contemporary writing, while also suggesting its coherence. Drawing on the concept of “strategic essentialism” elucidated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, I show that the anthology acts to ensure the visibility of a group, bannered as a unified and singly-titled selection of texts, while also insisting on the differences within: the heterogeneous multiplicity of black and Asian British experiences and creative practices

'Vernacular Voices: Black British Poetry'

ABSTRACT Black British poetry is the province of experimenting with voice and recording rhythms beyond the iambic pentameter. Not only in performance poetry and through the spoken word, but also on the page, black British poetry constitutes and preserves a sound archive of distinct linguistic varieties. In Slave Song (1984) and Coolie Odyssey (1988), David Dabydeen employs a form of Guyanese Creole in order to linguistically render and thus commemorate the experience of slaves and indentured labourers, respectively, with the earlier collection providing annotated translations into Standard English. James Berry, Louise Bennett, and Valerie Bloom adapt Jamaican Patois to celebrate Jamaican folk culture and at times to represent and record experiences and linguistic interactions in the postcolonial metropolis. Grace Nichols and John Agard use modified forms of Guyanese Creole, with Nichols frequently constructing gendered voices whilst Agard often celebrates linguistic playfulness. The borders between linguistic varieties are by no means absolute or static, as the emergence and marked growth of ‘London Jamaican’ (Mark Sebba) indicates. Asian British writer Daljit Nagra takes liberties with English for different reasons. Rather than having recourse to established Creole languages, and blending them with Standard English, his heteroglot poems frequently emulate ‘Punglish’, the English of migrants whose first language is Punjabi. Whilst it is the language prestige of London Jamaican that has been significantly enhanced since the 1990s, a fact not only confirmed by linguistic research but also by its transethnic uses both in the streets and on the page, Nagra’s substantial success and the mainstream attention he receives also indicate the clout of vernacular voices in poetry. They have the potential to connect with oral traditions and cultural memories, to record linguistic varieties, and to endow ‘street cred’ to authors and texts. In this chapter, these double-voiced poetic languages are also read as signs of resistance against residual monologic ideologies of Englishness. © Book proposal (02/2016): The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing p. 27 of 4

El carnaval canibalizado o el caníbal carnavalizado. Descontextualizando el chiste del caníbal en el calipso y la literatura.

SUMARIO 1.- Artículos Interpretación de un pasaje ambiguo del Quijote: el juicio del cura sobre Tirante el Blanco durante el escrutinio de los libros del ingenioso Hidalgo. (Primera parte, Capítulo VI). Morales Ardaya, Francisco Poéticas del viaje en la narrativa de la alta modernidad latinoamericana: Los Pasos Perdidos, de Alejo Carpentier. Palmero González, Elena 2.- Dossier Presentación. Mansoor, Ramón Solidaridad de clase y política sexual de las relaciones entre indios/africanos en la literatura trinitaria (Traducción: Fabiola Reyes). Rampersad, Sheila Reflexiones sobre una nación: un acercamiento a la cuestión de la identidad en la poesía trinitaria de Jennifer Rahim. Roberts, Nicole V. S. Naipul y the enigma of arrival (Traducción: José Francisco Velásquez). Singh Datoo, Arlene V. S. Naipaul, la escritura que dilucida el imaginario del mundo colonial. Valero, Arnaldo E. Haciendo palabra: la poesía de Jennifer Rahim. (Traducción: Andrés Seijas). Antoine-Dunne, Jean El espiritu africano y el espacio trinitario. Percepciones de la obra de Earl Lovelace. (Traducción: Jhilda Méndez). Sankeralli, Burton El carnaval canibalizado o el caníbal carnavalizado. Descontextualizando el chiste del caníbal en el calipso y la literatura. Rohlehr, Gordon La contribución de la música hispánica al calipso. (Traducción: Andrés Seijas). Regis, Louis 3.- Entrevista Entrevista con Brother Resistance (Hermano Resistencia). Mansoor, Ramón Creo que escribo desde la vida misma. Entrevista a Earl Lovelace. Pérez Sisto, Edith 4.- Reseñas La refiguración del viaje de Victoria de Stefano. Alba, Alexandra Escrituras híbridas. Juego intertextual y ficción en García Márquez y Jean Rhys de Mireya Fernández Merino. Navarro, Bernardo Relatar el tiempo: Alejo Carpentier de Elena Palmero. Pacheco O., Bettina 5.- Índice acumulado Índice acumulado. 6.- Portadas de secciones Puja (1993). Boudlov, Isaiah Dancing the limbo (1961). Boudlov, Isaiah Arrival (2002). Singh, Parmana Krishna playing the flute (1996). Boudlov, [email protected] analíticoanua

Drum and Minuet: Music, masquerade and the mulatto of style

A lo largo del siglo pasado, la emergencia de la literatura antillana ha ido tomado lugar junto al viaje de sus músicas variadas, desde sus diversas raíces folklóricas y espacios performativos, hasta lo vigoroso y deslumbrante del escenario popular contemporáneo. Puesto que en muchas culturas la ficción, la poesía, la música y el drama comparten raíces comunes, sería sorprendente que no fuese éste el caso de las comunidades multiculturales y multiétnicas de las islas de las Antillas. Este ensayo intenta cartografiar algunas de las paradojas que se han hecho visibles en la intersección entre la poesía y la música antillanas. Su enfoque principal se basará en cómo la tensión existente entre el folklore/raíces/ proletarias y estéticas generalmente negras y las estéticas "mulato"/mestizo/burguesas/euro centradas, han sido generadas y engendradas por nociones radicalmente antagónicas de arte, cultura y posibilidad creativa.15-57grohler@hotmailanualThe emergence of West Indian literature has, over the last century, been taking place alongside the journey of its various musics from their several folk roots and performance spaces, towards the blare and glare of the contemporary popular stage. Since in many cultures, fiction, poetry, music and drama share common roots, it would be surprising if this were not the case in the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic island communities of the West Indies. This essay attempts to map out some of the paradoxes that have become visible in the interface between West Indian poetry and music. Its main focus will be on how the tension between folk/grass-roots/proletarian and generally black aesthetics and ‘mulatto’/mestizo/bourgeois/Euro-centred aesthetics, has been generated by, even as it has itself engendered radically antagonistic notions about art, culture and creative possibility