Shake
Keane’s Poetic Legacy
Philip Nanton
Shake Keane achieved international
acclaim as a jazz trumpeter and fugle-horn player*. While his musicianship will
remain widely appreciated by jazz enthusiasts the world over, less attention
has been given to his poetry. In his writing, perhaps more than his jazz, he
left a legacy of direct interest to the Caribbean and especially his native St.
Vincent. Keane completed some five monographs of poetry before his death in
1997. L’Oubli, his first collection
was published in 1950 when he was 23 years old, Ixion was published in 1952, One
a Week With Water, which won the Casa d’las Americas Poetry Prize, and The Volcano Suite were published in1979
and Palm and Octopus in 1994. The aim of this paper is to examine some of
the features of that inheritance.
L’Oubli,
and Ixion explored a variety of his
skills as a poet. These early collections seemed to fluctuate between
introspective philosophical musings which drew on biblical references, nature
and environmental interests on one hand, and on the other, a public focus that began to capture, in a creative
way, the folk traditions of St.
Vincent. He summarised the focus of his
poetry as “ Typical West Indian consciousness” with themes of “
self-realisation through nature, nationalism, sense of the unreality of
colonial life; therefore, social protest on one hand, and on the other (an)
obsession with identity (after death since present life seems unreal). On the
positive side an attempt to understand and restructure poetically the tragedy,
hope, conservatism and ecstasy of peasant and folk life” (Contemporary Poets,
1970,p.587)
Keane had shown a particular interest in religious contemplative
themes in the 1940’s and 1950’s. This was reflected in two articles that he
published in Bim in 1952. His
articles illustrated how writers such as Campbell, Seymour, McFarlane, Smith
and Walcott all found the spiritual muse central to their writing. Some poets,
he argued, borrowed ritual prayers and wove poems around them, others showed a
preoccupation with love and charity. The contemplation of nature as a way to
God and the reverence for the sun were also common themes. He also detected a
contrast between male (indirect) and female (direct) approaches to this theme. L’Oubli, a long meditative poem from
which his first collection takes its name, presented six variations on the
theme of human fallibility and the transitory nature of the age. A central
feature of his exploration of the Religious Muse in the poem appeared to
involve a restless searching for stability beyond forgetting:
“And
we heard a voice from heaven
Saying
Seek
me, O restless soul,
No
rest for the seeking soul” (Keane, 1950,p.7)
Some of his early writing he recognised as modeled on a West
Indian version of writers of the 1930’s including Auden, MacNeice and
Day-Lewis. However, among the poems in that first published collection were
two, Shaker Funeral and Calypso Dancers which also establish his
reputation for originality. Gordon Rohlehr identified Shaker Funeral as an example of Keane’s imaginative use of the
religious paradigm infused with the energy of
the oral tradition (Rohlehr, 1992). Edward Baugh recognised in Calypso
Dancers the early use of jazz
inflections which other poets in the Caribbean were to follow (Baugh, 1971)
Common to both his early collections was an economy that reflected
a range of conflicts and moods; for example, the picture of rural life from the
opening of the poem Perhaps Not Now
contains both the hope of ease and the reality of hardship:
“Perhaps
not now the crops comfort,
The
chair with its deep harvest of rest,
Afternoons
unhurried naps.
Not
now the day,
Some
other time perhaps;
As yet only work, and waiting, and dreaming and the dust.”
(Keane, 1950, p.25)
In Storm Season, from
his second collection, Ixion, he
caught the dread of an approaching storm briefly, but effectively:
“Sampling
the possibility of doom
See
us searching the papers
Nursing
the radio
Tracking
the storm with needle and dial
Oh
God
How
fast is the wind
How
far is the journey of prayer” (Keane,
1952 p.6)
During the late 1940’s Keane was part of
a small flowering of talent in his native St. Vincent. By the early1950’s,
Keane, along with Danny Williams and Owen Campbell had became established as an
identifiable trio of Vincentian poets. Their writing was regularly published in
the Caribbean through the literary journals Bim
and Kyk-over-al and broadcast over
the BBC World Service programme Caribbean
Voices. One reason for this interest in their work was that each in their
own way wrote poetry distinguished by a sense of local commitment - illustrated
by Owen Campbell’s poem, We:
“ We
have decided
Not
to construct hope on continents
Or
leave lost hearts to rove
In
the quick air on oceans of dreams
We
have decided to build here in the slender dust” (Campbell, 1951).
In 1953, the output of this group was reviewed on the BBC Caribbean Voices programme; LePage, the
reviewer, detected in their writing the beginnings of an identifiable school of
poetry influenced by Derek Walcott with a strong sense of local place and their
position in it.
The
Jazz Years and Return to St. Vincent
In 1952 Keane traveled to London with the
intention of studying for a degree in English literature. He obtained work at
the BBC both as a reader on Caribbean
Voices to which he had contributed and later as a producer. His career as a
trumpet and fugle horn player soon took off and he played with a variety of
bands both in Britain and Europe. During this time he produced little poetry.
One exception is Fragments and Patterns
elements of which were reworked into the collection One A Week With Water. He claimed that in this period jazz became
the more appropriate medium for what he wanted to express. He stated that his
poetry had “dried up” around 1965, but individual poems were anthologised and a
few others published in Savacou and Bim.
In 1972, Keane took up an offer to return
to St. Vincent to head a national Department of Culture. This again stimulated
his interest in Vincentian folk traditions. That year, his one act play Nancitori with Drums was performed in
St. Vincent. Three years later his Department was closed down following a
change in the political regimen in St. Vincent. With little prospect of
re-entering a full time jazz career in Europe, he returned to secondary school
teaching in the island. His writing became pared to the bone, fragmented,
satirical and, at times, angry.
Underwater Games, Seven Studies in Home Economics
and Credential were all written in
the 1970’s, after his return to St.Vincent. Much of this work betrayed a sense
of frustration caused by local politics and the abandonment of his jazz career.
In Credential he responded to the
feeling of rejection of his role and jazz trumpet skills by Vincentians in the
following way:
“……
But
the sweet fool dem say
All-we culture all-we potential
is
definitely non-residential
all
dis trumpit is a famous load o’ piss
hold
on to dis.
So ah
lif’ up me credential
Same
one wha’ me fader show
how
fe polish
how
fe respec’
how
fe blow
an’
Ah say
fy
arfffffff”(Keane, 1974 )
One
A Week With Water
In 1979, Keane won the Cuban Casa d’las
Americas Poetry Prize for One A Week With
Water. It was probably in this collection
that he achieved his most imaginative commentary on Caribbean society in
general and St. Vincent society in particular. Superficially, the reader is
presented with a simple calendar offering observations for each week. These he
described in the introduction to the collection as “notes and rhymes”. They
took the form of a collage of verse, riddle, story, letters, spoof bureaucratic
form, aphorisms, reportage, and rhyme. Among the predominantly humorous pieces
in the collection are distributed a number of poetic shards with flashes of
anger, despair and loss. There is the sublime and the ridiculous. Regular
patterns are avoided. Standard as well as local forms of English are tossed
about for humour and serious intent. For the most part, however, Keane mixes
humor and gentle satire while commenting indirectly on order and chaos in
Vincentian society.
The author makes the point in a variety
of ways that a culture is being formed out of a diversity of accident and
tradition. This process of formation, he suggests, is chaotic, at times
repetitive but it is also creative. It is distinctly Caribbean, approaching
Benitez-Rojo’s definition of Caribbean culture as a culture of performance,
located in the public domain and, which is in its most distinctive aspect, one
“ whose time unfolds irregularly and resists being captured by cycles of clock
and calendar.” (Benitez-Rojo, 1996,p.11)
The reader of Keane’s “notes and rhymes” enters the realm of play
and a kind of interactive public performance. Keane invites us to come out to
play with time, words, traditions and received social and cultural order. All
of this is framed by a time of reverie. The collection was written, he tells
us, for his students “in the short lonely afternoons before their little town dropped
to sleep.” That is, a time when thoughts can stray anywhere and anything can
happen. Closer inspection of the
calendar form, which the work takes, reveals it is neither fixed to fifty-two
weeks nor is it chronologically ordered. Week forty-four precedes weeks
forty-three and forty-two. The reader is advised to “check for astronomical
errors between weeks 41 and 48”. There is a fifty-third week, week 47 follows a
“discrepancy day (added every 3114 years)”.
However, there is also a serious element to this play with time. He
points out that even calendar time is not set in stone. “Only in 1927”, he
tells us, “did Turkey adopt the Gregorian calendar. Maya astronomy moved easily
forwards and backwards in time identifying days 400 million years away.” (Keane,
1979, p.61) The author is suggesting that, in the context of St. Vincent’s
political independence, achieved in 1980, soon after the collection was
written, both calendars and new societies take time to become established.
Keane also orchestrates play with words.
“Truction”, “bodderation”, “long-guts”, ”edge up”, “gutsify” and “jokify” are
Vincentian creations that he offers without comment in his notes to the main
text. They represent the building blocks of St. Vincent’s creative use of
language. Here word power (power over the word) and word play come together in
the creation of these new words. However in the text he also illustrates that,
for the written word, the process of building has some way to go. In week 6 he notes:
“BUM
BUM is a small but growing
village near the capital of St. Vincent
We
have not yet devised a means
of
spelling its name in a way
that
satisfactorily indicates the way
it is
pronounced.” (Keane, 1979, p.18)
St. Vincent’s oral, folk traditions of
“nonsense talk” or “nonsense making” are also an important source of play.
Keane uses certain features of speech performance in Vincentian oral tradition
to set up a tension between “nonsense talk” or “nonsense making” and “sense”.
Abrahams has made a detailed study of these alternative forms of Vincentian
speech performance. He suggests that “nonsense talk” is usually associated with
speech performance in public places or at crossroads where talking “broad” or
talking “bad” occurs. These speech acts reflect a world of energy, action and
freedom. This activity may take place at set formal occasions, the most obvious
being Carnival. They may also be informal, for example, through commess. Often, the association is with
public occasions involving indulgence in all activities to the point of excess,
chaotic topsy-turvy behaviour, making fun in every dimension, especially
through songs of derision. These
displays are contrasted with the private yard where “sense”, talking “sweet”
and structured order and behaviour are expected. In this context the sensible
behaviour or speech acts support the ideals of the community. Those who are the
most adept at such performances, either the sweet talk or the nonsense, are
described as men (and women) of words.(Abrahams, 1983)
The explanation of Vincentian folk
culture which Abrahams offers appears to come close to what Keane’s captures
and interprets creatively in this collection. And so, indirectly, Keane becomes
a ‘man -of-words’ in the St. Vincent context.
Sometimes the focus of the nonsense that Keane supplies is the symbol of
the sensible world. This involves, for example, statistical calculations which
(as in Lesson Five in Seven Studies in
Home Economics ) are
intentionally meaningless -
“if you take the amount of
strong rum (calculated in proof - gallons)
consumed
in any given month
of
Sundays, ,…”(Keane, 1979, p.27)
or, the irreverent juxtaposition of
prayer and pride
“O Gard brederin
Was’n
dat
a
fun tas tic pray
I jus
pray dey
Speak yo mine
bredderin”
(Keane 1979, p.38)
and the spoof bureaucratic file of a psychological patient, much
of whose career involves traveling to different parts of the Caribbean and Canada, struggling with
changes of names. In the context of the explanation of “nonsense “ that
Abrahams offers, what Keane seems to be suggesting through his play with
“nonsense” is that order needs to be worked for and revalidated in any society,
it cannot be assumed as a given.
An occasional indication of “sense” in
the text appears to be recognised when it takes the form of innovation and
creativity. New words and phrases, as indicated above, are listed without
remarking on them. Occasional footnotes indicate local events that he considers
noteworthy. For example, in week 36 is
the footnote
“ Formation of N.A.M. (New Artists Movement)
3 years ago in September. First Vincentian group dedicated to taking the Arts
to the people and getting them involved. All those who recognise the importance
of Art for social awareness, solidarity and progressive transformation say “yes”,
hold up your hands, and make them stay up.” Keane 1979, p.52).
While he recognises that his island “deals perhaps less
comfortably with situations of fact than with engagements of personality” he
was encouraged by the hope that “what we will create, and even a’ready done
start create, pon this scarred and hallowed mountaintop, could blow yo mind”
(Keane, 1979, p,73)
Other forms of “nonsense”
are also present in the text. Rhymes and riddles, a folk story and a commess monologue also draw attention to
the text as public performance. As Abrahams has observed;
“Like
Anancy stories and Carnival performances, commess is classified as permissible
rudeness, as licensed nonsense - licensed because of the need to embody
antisocial motives and to castigate them.” (Abrahams, 1983, p. 86)
Thus, in Faustina’s one-sided conversation with Keane, which mixes
an attempt to maintain propriety while flirting with him, she notices another
woman observing them
“Watch Flora, nuh!…
stiff-backside (excuse me). Flora for Tooky over the road there! Watch how she
p-eyeing you and I. I telling you, Shaykeen, people in St. Vincent not nice
like long time, nuh! A person can’t have a respectable chat with a old friend
before the whole country don’t know before the clock strike nought… Is a good
thing you come back to bring us some Culture, you hear?… I was only small but
my mother used to tell me how your father bring up his whole family with
Culture…” (Keane 1979, p.47)
What Keane presents the reader with in
“One A Week With Water” is a slice of Caribbean, and specifically Vincentian
oral tradition, converted to text. This enabled Keane to pay homage to a rural
culture and comment obliquely on order and chaos in that society.
Exile
in New York
In 1980 Keane departed St. Vincent once
again, this time for New York where he made his home till his death while on a
lecture tour in Norway in 1997. In the latter years of Keane’s life he wrote
more reflective, personal poetry as in the collection “Palm and Octopus”, a collection
of twelve love poems which he published independently in 1994. The poem Angel Horn, a vivid contrast, though on
a similar theme, with the angry poem Credential
cited earlier, was one of the last poems that he wrote. It offers a gentle
interpretation of his musicianship and a lyrical summing up of an older man’s
perspective on his art and his life.
“When
I was born
my
father gave to me
an
angelhorn
With
wings of melody.
That
angel placed her lips
upon
my finger-tips
and I
became, became
her
secret name.” (Keane, 1997, )
In the context of a rich and varied
artistic life, how is Keane’s legacy of poetry to be assessed? His early poetry can be located in the
tradition of Caribbean religious poetry. His concern with the Religious Muse as
a pondering about the way to God, formed part of a well established focus of
interest for many Caribbean poets of that time. These concerns gave way to an
interest in the secular oral tradition and its poetical representation in the
context of his native St. Vincent. As more and more of the elements of this
oral tradition disappear from the island, his writing will continue to offer a
creative exploration of St. Vincent’s folk culture which will last.
*Note
Discussion on Keane’s musicianship can be
found in the following articles and interviews
Boulding C. Boho Soho revisited: the
poetry and horn of Shake Keane, Straight
, No Chaser, no.11,Spring 1991,
p.44 - 467)
Carr,I, Fairweather,D. Priesley,B.,
1995, Shake Keane, Jazz: the rough
guide, London, The Rough Guides,
Keane, S. 1990, Held together with rhythm
and rhymes: Shake Keane talks with Perspective, CARICOM Perspective, no.46 - 47,p.22.
Wilmer, V. 1989, Shake Keane: burning
spear, Wire, Issue 68, p.44 - 45
Wilmer. V. 1997, The Anger behind a free
form of jazz, The Guardian, 13:11:
1997).
References
Abrahams, R.D. 1983, The Man - of- Words
in the West Indies: Performance and the Emergence of Creole Culture, Baltimore,
John Hopkins University Press.
Baugh, E., 1971, West Indian Poetry 1900
- 1970: A Study in Cultural Decolonisation, Jamaica, Savacuo Publications,
Savacou Pamphlet no.1.
Benitez-Rojo, A. 1966, The repeating
island: the Caribbean and the post-modern perspective. London, Duke University Press.
Campbell, 1951, We, Caribbean
Voices, Caversham, BBC Written
Archives,
Keane, E.McG. 1950, L’Oubli:Poems, Bridgetown, Advocate Co.
---- 1952, Ixion:Poems, Minature Poets 10,
Georgetown,
----- 1952, Some religious attitudes in West Indian
poetry, Bim, 4,15.
----- 1953, Nature poetry in the West Indies: the
religious aspect, Bim,5, 16
------ 1970, E.M.Keane Contemporary Poets of the English Language
------ 1973, Fragments and Patterns, in Paul Breman (ed)
You Better Believe It: Black Verse in English from Africa, the West Indies and
the United States, Harmondsworth, Penguin.
------- 1976, Per Capita Per Annum: Lesson Five in Seven
Studies in Home Economics, Kairi,
------- 1994,
Credentials, in Real Keen: Reggae into Jazz, London, LKJ Music Publishers.
------ 1979, One A Week With Water, Habana,
Ediciones Casa de las Americas.
------- 1994, Palm and Octopus: twelve love poems,
Brooklyn, The Author.
Rohlehr, G. 1992, The problem of the problem of form in The
Shape of That Hurt and Other Essays, Port-of-Spain, Longman.
Paper presented at the Society for
Caribbean Studies (U.K.) Conference at University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, 4/5
July 2000
Philip Nanton is an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Caribbean Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, U.K.