This dialect thing

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yes-i-does-speak-english

Is this Creole language just a spoken language?

The use of the creole language makes the reading difficult, inaccessible, slows down the pace, etc etc.
These words, these expressions, often nail ugly, nagging, little doubts into my writing, whenever I hear, see or think about them.
How do we as Caribbean writers, especially ones who are determined not only to preserve but to promote our creole language – those of us who are bold enough to brave this language which many will agree is only meant to be a spoken language – how do we brave it in our stories, our writing? Going boldly, where many others dare not even consider this challenge.
In response to Lisa Allen-Agostine’s article on navigating the use of Caribbean creole language in our writing, (www.guardian.co.tt/columnist/2014-04-22/sounding-creole-grenada-days-12), Pattrini commented,  “ If you were to read aloud a passage in creole (or dialect, as it is also called), that would be fine. But hearing/speaking as opposed to reading creole… there is a difference between the two…” And I have to agree to a certain extent. I found this example online, supposedly written by a Grenadian. “Da other day when a went by Sears a had so much problem with the bay who was helping me. first a try to get bay to help me and he juss keep runnin around de place like he stupid. Den when he finally came and a ack him to show me some o de frig and them de wuz acking like he en even no wah goin on.” Hmm. Do you get it?
I then googled what West Indian writers say about using the creole language, and came across this post by Barbadian writer Shakirah Bourne shared an excerpt from Trainspotting by Scottish Author, Ivrine Welsh, (read it here – http://getwritebds.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/trainspotting.jpg) Here is what she commented, “Now…I want you to understand this is the novel ‘that became the cult sensations of Britain. Trainspotting is the novel that first launched Irvine Welsh’s spectacular career—an authentic, unrelenting, and strangely exhilarating episodic group portrait of blasted lives.’ My point – and I always get there – is how the ramgeorge people can love, read and accept the language in this book, and then complain and cry down bout lil Caribbean dialect in novels, saying nuhbody won’t be able to understand it?” Read the complete post here –http://getwrite.com/2013/06/29/on-dialect-how-caribbean-people-supposed-tuh-talk-in-a-book-eh/

Yes still, as determined as I am, these little insecurities nibble at me continuously, and at times, painfully!
In my manuscript Force Ripe (soon to be published), I am adamant about using our Grenadian creole, despite all the warnings from literary agents and editors about making my book inaccessible to a wider audience outside of our Caribbean Diaspora. I have used this language, not only as dialect in dialogue, but also within the text, to demonstrate the nuances of the language, especially with personal and possessive pronouns. For example, “Me and me brother always home for weself.” I have also doubled up on adverbs and adjectives for emphasis. For example, “I grip Daddy neck tight tight.” Or “The damn boy head big big!” And to add to that, I have written the manuscript in the voice and point of view of a child, which changes as she grows and develops. This story is set in the north of the island, and some of us will know that, not only does the dialect vary from the north to the south, but so does the accent. Which is why, for authenticity sake, the use of dialect/creole is indispensable. For me, putting standard English on the narrator’s tongue, or most of the characters’ from the same setting, is like putting fillet steak or lamb chops in oil down. It just does not work.
Now I am halfway through my manuscript, editing and rewriting in the present tense because I realize this creole language works more effectively in this tense, especially as we tend to just leave out the past tense altogether. And so ‘Mammy goes …’, becomes ‘Mammy does go …’. ‘He went...’ might be ‘He did go…’ but we will say ‘He de go…’. Not easy! This reminds me of a little conversation I had with an American man at St George’s University, one evening (while attending an intensive editing workshop with our writer in residence, Trinidadian, Lisa Allen Agostini), about our creole language. He sang me a little chorus which he had composed called “Ah go go.” And I can’t remember the words now, but it went like this…ah go go and play jouvert. Ah go go and cook me oil down..etc etc. In an American accent! Can you imagine! And I am almost certain I recently came across this double use of the verb go in Half of A Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi. Now I wish I had marked the page, so I could reference it.
Anyway, this is all to say that this damn language is not easy to write, but if we as Caribbean Writers, if I as a Grenadian writer don’t write it, who will! And even if this means that my audience will be limited to the Caribbean diaspora, then I am cool with that. It is a conscious choice I am making. I am also challenging myself to hook and pull my readers into the story, so the reading, the understanding of the language will flow.
And this is what spurs me on, keeps me motivated…. injects me with renewed determination to follow through. This is what makes me put that oil down on hold; cover my preparations, make sure I attire myself appropriately, and venture down the road to that little shop, braving the rumsons (rum drinkers) gathered under the mango tree, raw, unguarded expletives, stand by the door, while the well admired shopkeeper deal with her customers – all of whose names she knows, some scribbled somewhere in her little credit book, until payday. This is why I wait patiently, stamping away flies and slapping mosquitoes, to order my pound of pigtails and chicken back and neck, even though that lovely piece of fillet steak and those thick chunks of chicken breast sit in the freezer.

 

 

Expressing emotion

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writing stone“Fiction evokes Emotion. Emotion is the glue that pulls all other disparate (and perhaps desperate) elements together,” Sol Stein said. I am editing in layers really…now that it’s down, I am fixing the structure, getting the sensory images right in my descriptions, and facing the challenge of getting the emotions right. How does a child express emotions..how do I get these evoked emotions across? I am taking the advice of T. S. Elliot on this one – trying to find ‘objective correlatives': a set objects, situations, a chain of events – as a formula in getting them across.

Who said this writing thing was easy?

Me this stone

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 stone 03You see me this stone

You see how I just sit down here
Kinda round and kinda flat on the top, just so
You see where I position meself – right as you bend the corner after the first back-breaking hill, and just before the next killer hill. You see it up there
You see how ah settle meself right here, so the sun could bathe me through the breadfruit leaves, and then the skinnup could shade me when ah get too hot.
And I position meself right here where people could rest their tired bamsie on me
So I does hear all kinds a thing
And I know them voices and them good good now
The one that does drag he slippers going down the road, he jersey (T-shirt) reaching below he short pants. Sac on he back. Cap on head. Cigarette in hand. He voice husky and deep deep as if it coming out from quite down inside a barrel
And you see that lady across the road there, that look like she supposed to be a nice old lady with she cotton hair, sitting on she veranda? Well all she doing is maccoing the breadfruit tree. Shouting every time she hear a branch move or see a shadow
“Aye! Aye! Who dey in the breadfruit dey
Who you ask for breadfruit? Breadfruit tree is all you own?”
And the damn breadfruit tree is not even hers
The breadfruit and them just falling and making mess in the road
And all the youth man want is a breadfruit, maybe two if he lucky
To put down a likkle pot ah oil down, maybe share with he brethrens
Wash it down with a likkle lime juice. Because times hard. Is a survival

Then the fisherman going down, bucket a bait and fishing line
Telling the school children “mine how you go eh. Walk on the side nuh man.
What! You looking nice today oui!”
And I real like that; how he have time for them children
Later he going up, barracuda, bonita,.a slimy squid- dinner for the family
But it have a woman down the hill there, down in Bluggoe Hallow
Every morning she shouting, Rashooonn! Rashawn! Boy come and sweep the damn yard nuh bwoy. And I didn’t know it still have children who does sweep yard nuh
“Boy you doh going and tie out de blasted sheep.” Then later me neighbour calling hi. “Boy come and move the poor suffering sheep from there nuh. You end see it en getting nottin to eat there!”
And is the same youth man the lady across there had to put in he place the other day, because he too dam fresh up with heself. Seeping and calling her baby, as if them is companion or something. But ah was shock when she tell him how she have children twice he age oui! She en looking so at all!
Now Smallhead by she gate calling, ‘upstairs, upstairs!’ The other day, early early morning, he banging on she window with he broomstick when she didn’t answer him. And ah see he does pass in the back and walk round by the kitchen, and I know the lady doh like that because sometimes she does be walking round just as she born. But he does only charge a dollar a bag, to take garbage down to the bin. Every man have to make a dollar.
But you see how I just sit down here, so I does see all kinds a thing too
And so all kinds a bamsie does sit down on me
You see when them old ladies and them coming up from the beach early early morning, after they make it up Campesh Hill, and they bracing theyself, catching their hell to catch their breath, before they tackle Breakback Hill? Well they does take a likkle break by me here too. And one of them must rest she bamsie down on me
And ah does watch how those youths and them does speed up their car. Pretending they en hear them old ladies begging for a “pull up the hill nuh.”
You think I doesn’t hear all you saying how all you can’t handle these old people and them! But remember, is go they going, but is come all you coming!
And when Broko staggering up from the rum shop, where he had rum for tea, breakfast and dinner, the spirits seeping out from all he pores and them, just before he knock knee knock him down – and I don’t know how he does know when he reach me – but ah does just feel he bony bamsie hit me. Braps! And all I does think is, you better don’t fall and hit you blasted head on me, because ah en want no police come and ask me no question
But hear nuh, the other day when Susan bounce up with Natty, she just spread she big bamsie on me, so ah can’t even breath, much less see. And they start talking about the Church minister who have he wife and children but he still interfering with people girl children. How he too damn nasty for a big man! How he must make a damn jail. And ah know who they talking about good good, because a certain young girl does rest she bamsie on me and wait for a particular CRV to cruise down Breakback Hill. Heh!
And talking about CRV, I thought they say the country hard, how things dread. But I never see so much big brand new shiny cars passing on this road like now. And I wondering where people getting money to buy these cars and them!
And I even see that damn stuipdee ripping down the girl clothes in the road, the other night. Telling her to just give him back he damn clothes! Just because she take a likkle dance with somebody . Boy ah wonder what else he take back when they reach home
Yea man. I does hear and see all kinds a thing
Watch, I does surf the net and all, where you see ah sit down here, watch movie with them youth man and them, when they come and sit down on me to get connection
But you see that damn voice that interfering with me everyday
Telling me why ah doh stop me idleness there
Why ah doh go and get work to do
But ah does listen to the other voice too
It does tell me doh study it. It too damn fass
So I listenening
I still listening

Reading at St George’s University

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Reading picSounding off on Creole Grenada Days 12
Published:
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Lisa Allen-Agostin

Last Wednesday I wrapped the official activities of my writing residency with a gala reading at the St George’s University campus. It was the culmination of my service activities here. I felt especially proud when Grenadian writer Cindy McKenzie took the stage to read an excerpt from her manuscript Force Ripe. Cindy had been one of five participants in my intensive workshop for writers of intermediate to advanced prose fiction. The workshop ran weekly throughout March.

Cindy came to the workshop with her work at an already advanced stage. It is a novel about a girlchild coming of age during the Revolution, and includes some extraordinary details of life in Grenada during the 70s and 80s. I am hoping it will soon find a publisher and everyone will have a chance to read it themselves. One of Cindy’s concerns is that the whole manuscript is written in Grenadian Creole. While I (of course) don’t object to it, she’s encountered some resistance from other readers. It’s a question that has come up in nearly every workshop I’ve done here over my residency: how to navigate the use of Caribbean creoles in our writing. As someone who wrote a weekly column in Trinidad Creole for some years, I have to come down on the side of using the language.

This writing thing

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typewriterflowerWrite, write write. It’s what I want to do and to get really good at. But it is difficult. All good writers say it’s difficult ..so there. I said it!And sometimes I have to make myself do it – sit myself down somewhere, and actually put words down on paper, and other times it just comes, it flows and I just go with it. But my writing is all over the place – literally all over the place in all different notebooks, diaries, much like my thoughts and my life really. I write this and that, here and there. And I really enjoy doing it. When people ask what I do, I say I do a little bit of writing. In fact I do lots of writing, yet, I don’t feel qualified to call myself a writer, simply because I don’t have any MAs or BAs against my name. I kept putting my writing down; measuring myself against other writers. Who told you you could be a writer? I kept questioning myself. Recently the writing tutor of my Memoir writing class commented – ‘I think you have the gift of writing or so it seems: you naturally tell a story and have a voice and a point of view’ and later, reassuringly said, ‘I remind you: you are a writer’ – suggested I send a particular piece I wrote, to The New York Times Sunday columns. And although this has really boosted my confidence, self-doubt niggles.
Recently, in a discussion with my partner about what a writer is, I came very close to tip-exing the word ‘Writer’ on the information cards which I had finally had printed – a small step towards marketing myself as a writer. In her essay ‘The Getaway Car’ Ann Patchett confesses, “I grieve for my own lack of talent and intelligence. Every. Single. Time. Were I smarter, more gifted, I could pin down a closer facsimile of the wonders I see. I believe, more than anything, that this grief of constantly having to face down our own inadequacies is what keeps people from being writers.’ Who or what is a writer? There are several definitions of what a writer is. Wikipedia states, ‘A writer is a person who uses written words in various styles and techniques to communicate ideas.’ In another dictionary, a writer is ‘a person who is able to write or write well.’ I rest my case.
I have now allowed myself to feel proud of my achievements –as little as they may be (the winning letter in Woman & Home magazine – the prize, a beautiful hatbox of French gourmet chocolates delivered to my door and a letter in Mslexia Writers magazine). And for a little bigger accomplishment, the completion on my memoir, which has taken me on some trying journeys over the years. What sprouted from my, somewhat naive determination, to share this story, using my own voice, has grown and developed into the completion of a full length manuscript. I must admit that this determination has almost been stifled along the way, not so much by rejections or the lack of confidence in my writing, but by the realization that my ultimate goal, the ultimate goal of most writers – to get published – seems further away, more unreachable. Octavia Butler says you do it alone with no, “…certainty that you’ll ever be published or paid or even that you’ll be able to finish the particular work you’ve begun. It isn’t easy to persist amid all that.”
Ann Patchett goes on to say, that she will keep forgiving herself, I guess for what she feels are her inadequacies. What’s to forgive? Having to forgive yourself to me, suggests you are measuring yourself too closely against other writers – amplifying differences, mistaking them for inadequacies. You are the writer you are. And if you are the best writer you are capable of being, then even better. We can’t all be John Grishams or Toni Morrisons. Who will be the Harper Lees? Or me?