September 22, 2015

Hurricane Janet, September 22, 1955

Reading Time 1 mins Sixty years later today Janet smolders in the Grenadian mind. “Janet”, the Hurricane, stands for fury and apocalyptic fire! Curiously, the word “hurricane” is derived from Harucan, the  name of a Carib “Indian”  god who shot calamitous winds.   Poet Derek Walcott acknowledges the Carib deity in a poem entitled “Huracan”.   Once branching light startles the hair of the coconuts, and on the villas’ asphalt roofs, rain resonates like pebbles in a pan, and only the skirts of surf waltz round the abandoned bandstand, and hear the telephone cables hallooing like fingers tapped over an Indian’s mouth, once the… Read More »Hurricane Janet, September 22, 1955