Kamau Braithwaite - Literary History at Risk

Just found this on Lisa Jarnot's blog. I am in total agreement with this assessment of Kamau Brathwaite. Writers, please write. (anyone have more info?) Where's a good PEN when you need one?
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Lisablog

Tuesday, 19 April 2005




This just in from Lisablog Correspondent Rod Smith and new Lisablog Correspondent Tisa Bryant:

Dear All,

Kamau Brathwaite is a treasure of a human being, a brilliant scholar and magnificent poet.  He has long been battling the Barbados government to keep his land, Cow Pastor, in Christ Church parish, and now, in his 70s, it looks like he may lose it, which puts his livelihood, his home, and his archive of Caribbean literature and literary history at risk.

His tone is bleak, and frightened.  He's talking about burning himself upon the land, and is clearly asking for community support.  Please write to him at kb5@nyu.edu, urge other poets and artists who care to write to him, and simply tell him you support him, and ask him what he needs to save his land, not what he's doing to save his land.  He is asking for academics, poets, artists, to come to Cow Pastor, see what's happening there, and help him mobilize to save it. If you know artists and writers in Barbados, please contact them and urge them to help.

If you can do this, do this.

Thanks!

Tisa