bigdrumnation

Reading Time 1 minsFebruary 21, 2023 From the launch of BIG DRUM NATION as a free-access Caribbean creative journal in 2005, we have also been reparation activists. In a book Symposium on Reparations last August 23, we called for a “country-specific focus on British plunder in the region.” In this issue, Martin P. Felix answers the call with “How Britons Underdeveloped Grenada,” which challenges the effrontery of a British aristocratic family’s determination to dictate the terms on which reparations should be accepted. Felix asks, in which jurisprudence is the criminal allowed to be judge, jury, and dispenser of the terms of… Read More »BRITONS ON TRIAL! GRENADA, Part Two–BDN Editors

Reading Time 2 minsFebruary 7, 2023 While we need gas, is it that that gas must be accessed by playing into a hegemonic power’s strategic and tactical geopolitical moves in its contest for global domination with the Russian and Chinese superpowers? Trinidad and Tobago has established a long and respected record of standing on the principles of respect for the sovereignty of other nations and their right to self-determination and against interference in their internal affairs by big powers. Are we now to squander that exemplary record for the sake of gas at any cost and objectively join with the US-NATO… Read More »GAS BY ANY MEANS – A DANGEROUS ROAD TO TRAVEL/Clyde Weatherhead

Reading Time 1 minsFebruary 7, 2023 “Some talk of legality  Constitutionality But only to export their hypocrisy. If you examine The state of affairs in their land You will find human rights violations, Total disregard for the constitution. Complex political persecution, And a wave of sanctioned violence With the blessing of legislative criminals.” King Short Shirt, “Viva Grenada.“   Anticipating continuity rather than discontinuity with President Biden simply following the saber-rattling characteristic of the Trump presidency regarding Cuba, Venezuela, and any nation which stood on principle against America’s impulse to dominate, we wondered if, based on a few positive signs… Read More »Same Old Story: Biden Consolidates Trump’s Legacy In Latin America & The Caribbean?/BDN Editorial

Reading Time

Reading Time 1 minsFebruary 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 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… Read More »CULTURAL AMBASSADORS’ SERIES: REMEMBERING Dr. GORDON ROHLEHR/BDN EDITORS

Reading Time 4 minsFebruary 2, 2023 “Throughout his life, Gordon Rohlehr has been overflowing with creativity… that flowed from his soul, mind, and pen as majestically and powerfully as the waters of Kaieteur Falls and as beautifully and far-reaching as the Ortoire River.” The path of verbal virtuosity traveled by Gordon Rohlehr during his lifetime was never before traversed. Footsteps that followed a cosmic calling and creative compass guided by a mix of parental influences and fueled by passionate perseverance. His father was the superintendent of a boys’ reform school, and his mother was the principal of an Anglican primary school. Though she won… Read More »GORDON ROHLEHR: THE GUYA-DADIAN GIANT!/JOSH TYSON-FERMIN

Reading Time 5 minsJanuary 31, 2023 “[A] conversation with him… was a learning experience… on which he would bring to bear his perceptive literary skills [and] his vast range of interests in many things: cricket, calypso, politics, carnival, art, and international affairs would somehow become interrelated in a conversation that might have begun with a question or comment about the merits of crab and callaloo as a symbol of [our region]”. There will be many tributes to Gordon Rohlehr, from those far more competent than I, those who knew him in his professional life and/or personal life and are far… Read More »AVE ET VALE: GORDON ROHLEHR, 1942—2023/KEN JAIKARANSINGH

Reading Time 1 minsWishing For Wings Big Drum Nation invites readers in the New York metropolitan area and beyond to attend the premiere of Kim Johnson’s Wishing For Wings (W4W) at the Festival of Cinema NYC on August 11 at 12.30 pm. The screening is at Regal UA Midway Theatre, 108-22 Queens Blvd, Forest Hills, NY. Click HERE for tickets to the August 11 (Thursday) screening. The film is a moving documentary on the young convicts in the juvenile prison in Trinidad known as the Youth Training Centre (YTC). The film shows the violence these boys have endured and visited on others and their… Read More »Wishing For Wings

Reading Time 11 minsJanuary 23, 2023 (Originally published on March 20, 20217) In 1977, a calypsonian from Trinidad & Tobago named the Mighty Unknown caused patrons of the calypso tent to fall off their seats when he performed a calypso called “Ah Vex.” Unknown, in his cleverly constructed offering, threw four stanzas of piccong at the St Lucian poet whom the calypsonian alleged had had the temerity to be critical of the place which had been good enough to extend to him, its generosity; “Derek you must be fou bé dangé or mad Sit down on river stone and talk… Read More »Nobel Laureate, Derek Walcott; Trinidad? – Llewellyn Mac Intosh

Reading Time 6 minsJanuary 23, 2023 “It is a country full of printable names: Paramin, Fyzabad, Couva, where the trees rhyme.” Bemoaning calypsonians’ facility in using language to conjure imagery, the Mighty Conqueror, in one of his classics, heckled those calypsonians [who] can only sing about a mango if they have the seed to show the audience. In Morning, Paramin, where art emotes and serves as the springboard for poems, Derek Walcott turns Conqueror’s banter on its head. In this offering, he constructs verse after canto that does not merely mimic but extends and reimages Peter Doig’s paintings as rhyme and… Read More »Reflections on Morning, Paramin*/Winthrop R. Holder