by Orita | February 3rd, 2009
now a historical keepsake
BASSETERRE
“Images and Insights of a Sugar Era” is the title given to a collection of poems written by Kittitians and Nevisians about the demise of the Sugar Industry. The publication which is still hot off the press was given that title because it contains not only the poems (insights) but also photos or images of the Sugar Era – images like chimneys, windmills, trains and estate houses which still dot our landscape but which may eventually disappear as we move away from our ‘sugar’ history.
In 2005 as we drew to the end of our 300 year old Sugar Industry, a Sugar Poetry competition was launched. The small Sugar Poetry Committee called on nationals to “Let History record our thoughts and feelings on the story of Sugar and what it meant to us.” Twenty seven poets responded to the call. All poems were of such a high standard that the Committee sought funding to have them immortalized in the recently published collection.
It is hoped that every Kittitian and Nevisian family at home and abroad will seek to get a copy of this keepsake which chronicles the historical, cultural and creative record of our island country. The book takes the reader on a nostalgic journey through the cane fields, recalling the sights, smells, sounds and escapades of our life with sugar, as children and as adults.
The book is expected to grow in value the older it gets – Creighton Pencheon, one of the poets envisages a time in the future when we will not have this landscape. He says:
“What will I tell my great grandchildren
When your waving leafy stalks
No longer paint our landscape
In majestic hues of verdant greens
When your sun-splashed gardens of greenery
Give way to overgrown wild wilderness…?”
And Mystic Taylor, who was just 9 years old when his poem was written could only lament:
Sugar is sweet,
Sugar is brown,
We no got no more of we sugar aroun’.”
Many other poets, known and unknown adorn the pages of the book with their verse. Poets like Angela Inniss, Loughlin Tatem, Valencia Kelly, Gail Liburd, Winston (Zack) Nisbett, Dorothy Martin, Julie Gumbs, Andrea Bowry and Oliver Spencer. You will discover many others who will surprise you with their poetic sensitivity. The Committee is sincerely grateful to those who supported the cause and helped to bring these creative efforts into the hands of the public.
The books are available in bookstores and some supermarkets.
For further information contact:
Lorna Callender
Tel. 664 1352
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