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February 2, 2023
“[T]he dead only die when they are forgotten by the living.”
–Gordon Rohlehr, Pathfinder: Black Awakening In The Arrivants of Edward Kamau Brathwaite
Professor Gordon Rohlehr receiving Trinidad and Tobago’s Silver Chaconia Medal in 2022 from President Paula Mae Weekes at the National Awards. Photo: Office of the President.
Today we remember and celebrate the life and outsized contribution of a Caribbean Colossus and thought shaper who transitioned on January 29, 2023. Dr. Gordon Rohlehr’s illuminating and relaxed disposition shines a light that brightens our presence and futures. His work was both timely and timeless, making it sing through time as his praises will echo through the ages.
Caribbean Civilization influenced Dr. Rohlehr as much as he transformed it by paying close attention to the formerly marginalized/everyday people, especially their ways of living and creative expressions. He immersed himself in cultural forms of all types. In book after article, he affirmed the potency of the native wit, imagination, and wisdom of the great commoner while recalibrating popular cultural forms as high art fit for any stage, library, or setting.
In particular, two texts encapsulate his reverence and respect for ‘the scufflings of the islands.’ My Whole Life Is Calypso and Man Talking To Man serve as tributes to our artists’ intuitive wisdom/brilliance. Still, like an ‘echo in the bone,’ these works reiterate a sentiment that affirms Rohlehr’s essence–the centrality of popular culture and a commitment to chant down Babylon.
Both contributors hoist and carry forward the Banner of Memory as they enshrine Dr. Rohlehr and his work in the Caribbean and world historiography, thus underscoring the epigraph. In “Ave Et Vale: Gordon Rohlehr, 1942-2023,” Ken Jaikaransingh provides a well-reasoned overview of the measure of Rohlehr’s continuing impact on Caribbean society as an engaging man of letters, while in “Gordon Rohlehr: The Guya-Dadian Giant,” Josh Tyson-Frermin reports on the pivotal moment of the 1960s which set Rohlehr on a literary pilgrimage to self-knowledge leading to his and society’s cultural transformation. Central to both articles is the conviction that Dr. Rohlehr’s work and impact will continue to refresh our sense of self by preserving “the dead as ancestral presences.”
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From BDN Editors