Where are the Bahamian Creative Writers?

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“I have never studied poetry or fiction by a Bahamian author in junior high or high school,” said a certain high school student in Nassau, The Bahamas. “We studied other Caribbean authors, but not Bahamians,” she continued. Her statement is an indictment of the Bahamian literary culture, but, unfortunately, did not totally surprise me. I’d had a similar experience decades earlier. For my part, I knew of several Bahamian poets and could quote their poems. But I did not study them in the educational system, I learned about them from my parents. However, I am saddened about the dearth of Bahamian poetry and fiction in classrooms across The Bahamas. I intend to be the change I want to see.

For 10 years I’ve been a noncreative in corporate America. I have studied, worked, and lived in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area.  I have focused mostly on writing content for newsletters, brochures, proposals, magazines, reports, white papers, press releases, and marketing products. Additionally, I have engaged in substantive and copy editing of a variety of publications and communications products. I have amassed more than 13 years of experience in publications development and production. However, since I had the conversation with that special young lady last summer 2012, my creative juices have been reawakened, and my creative energy refocused.

I am now a recovering noncreative, and I want to begin to build the Bahamian literary experience through my poetry and my fiction. I want Bahamian children to be able to embrace the words of someone like them, who has walked their streets, lived in their neighborhoods, studied in their school system, speaks their language, and shares their culture. I want Bahamian college student to participate in literary criticism of local authors. I want the Bahamian work force to read local authors and their book clubs or in the privacy of their homes. I want to introduce this experience coupled with my own personal experience as a Bahamian American to the world stage. I have a unique voice bathed in a variation of the Gullah dialect and British and American English. And I have the experience of multiple cultures.

 

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” is one translation of a quote by Chinese philospher Laozi. Well, I’m several steps into my journey, dedicating time each day to reading poetry and literary fiction and then to writing.