Caribbean
Memory, Ocean, and Trinidad and Tobago – Sabria Schouten
Inspired by the discussion of Zong! in this course and by the lecture on poetry, I chose to create a piece of found poetry connected to NourbeSe Philip’s work. The poem below is composed of words from the following quote found in Zong!, in the chapter entitled “Notanda”, where NourbeSe Philip writes:
“Our entrance to the past is through memory – either oral or written. And water. In this case salt water. Sea water. And, as the ocean appears to be the same yet is constantly in motion, affected by tidal movements, so too this memory appears stationary yet is shifting always” (201).
The poem seeks to convey the connection between the ocean and memory in its oral and written form. While the words for the poem are directly selected from this passage, I also considered Dionne Brand’s A Map to the Door of No Return, where questions of memory, identity, and belonging arise and are connected to the ocean. As a result, while the poem, because it deals with memory, a notion relevant for the entire Caribbean space, as discussed in the course, this poem as a culture map is informed by the two Trinidadian authors whose work and words I drew on to compose a piece of found poetry.
Keeping to the Trinidadian space and the cultural production from this part of the Caribbean, I chose to piece together NourbeSe Philip and Dionne Brand’s words against the backdrop of one of Wendy Nanan’s artworks from her Cricket Drawings collection. I found the drawing and the circumstances in which Nanan created it to be telling of the concept of entanglement that has accompanied most of our class discussions. Born in Trinidad, Nanan studied art in Wolverhampton, England, where her West Indian and Caribbean descent were commented upon and discriminated against in English society. Her Cricket Drawings are a response to these attitudes of the West, as she draws figures from the West Indies engaging in the game. What is more, in 1979 when she commenced her depiction of cricket players, the West Indies team was renowned for its exceptional performance, also besting England. Thus, by focusing on NourbeSe Philip, Brand, and Nanan, the poem below constitutes a culture map of some of the cultural production and ideas from Trinidad and Tobago, while also attesting to the concept of memory and to the entanglement that the entire Caribbean space is characterized by.