Marley at the Crossroads: Invocations of Bob Marley in the Poetry of Geoffrey Philp
2010; Routledge; Volume: 43; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/08905762.2010.514401
ISSN1743-0666
Autores Tópico(s)Australian History and Society
ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1Geoffrey Philp, “Limbo,” Dub Wise (unbound ms.), 18. 2Philp, “Heirlooms,” Florida Bound (Leeds: Peepal Tree, 1995), 36. 5Philp, “psalm,” xango music (Leeds: Peepal Tree, 2001), 56. 3In the poem “Florida Bound” (which gives his second book of poetry its title), Philp laments, “I can't go back to the island / I see too many dead,” and concludes, “[O]ur exile will never end until we free / of those who teach only the whip and rope” (61–63). 4Nanny, who led the Jamaican Maroons in a long, successful fight against the planters, and Paul Bogle, who led the 1865 Morant Bay Uprising, are now both national heroes. Don Drummond, legendary trombonist with the Skatalites, and dub poet Michael Smith, who both died tragically young, have become symbols of creative struggle. Rastafari, Xango, Vodou, and Kumina are all syncretic New World religions attesting to a history of cultural resistance. 6Philp, “everglades litany,” xango music , 60. 7Philp, “¿para donde va?” xango music , 16. 8Such an account would have to consider poetry by CitationKendel Hippolyte (for example, “Antonette's Boogie” and “So Jah Sey”), and Kwame Dawes (Shook Foil , particularly the “Tentative Definitions” poems), as well as Anum Iyapo's “Overstanding,” Fred D'Aguiar's “Dread,” John Agard's “For Bob Marley,” and dozens of other poems that explicitly or implicitly invoke Bob Marley. 9Philp, “Limbo,” 18. 10The reference is to “Three Little Birds” from Bob Marley's Exodus (1977). 11The reference is to “One Love,” also from the album Exodus. 14 CitationGoodison, “Heartease,” 40. 15 CitationGoodison, “Heartease,” 41. 12Perhaps the most striking example of Marley's lyrics presented as literally biblical occurs in CitationGerald Hausman's edition of the Kebra Nagast , which appends a selection of them as a sort of New Testament to “The Lost Bible of Rastafarian Wisdom.” 13 CitationLorna Goodison, “Heartease New England 1987,” Heartease (London: New Beacon, 1988), 40. 17Mutabaruka., “Wailing,” in Dub Poetry: 19 Poets from England and Jamaica, ed. Christian Habekost (Neustadt, Germany: Michael Schwinn, 1986), 105. 16 CitationAfua Cooper, “Stepping to da Muse/Sic” in Wheel and Come Again , ed. CitationKwame Dawes (Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane, 1998), 62. 18For a discussion of Marley as psalmist, maker of “the true, new psalms” (Neville Garrick, qtd. in Steffens, 153), see CitationKwame Dawes's Natural Mysticism. Marley as inheritor of King David's harp is also beautifully imagined in CitationLorna Goodison's “Calling One Sweet Psalmist”:new songs are being releasedin me, I chant nowcelestially, I am becomewhat I was born to beI am, I am sweet psalmist (To Us All Flowers Are Roses, [Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1995], 154) 19On possession as a recurring theme in Jamaican poetry, including Marley's music, see CitationHugh Hodges, Soon Come: Jamaican Spirituality, Jamaican Poetics. 20See Anand Prahlad's exploration of this dimension of Marley's work in Reggae Wisdom: Proverbs in Jamaican Music. 21This is, of course, not a connection unique to Haitian Vodou. Divine messengers of all kinds—from the ancient Greek Hermes to the North American Coyote—tend to have trickster qualities. Papa Legba's West African analogue Elegbara (the giver of choices) is intimately related to Esu (the trickster); in fact, they often appear as the single Orisha Esu-Elegbara. 22 CitationKwame Dawes, Natural Mysticism, Towards a New Reggae Aesthetic (Leeds: Peepal Tree, 1999), 180. One frequently cited example of this occurs in “Small Axe,” where the reference to the “big t'ree” about to be cut down is read as “a clever Marley pun about the top three recording giants” (CitationDawes, 177). 23One measure of this complex in-between-ness is the fact that the term “Floribbean,” coined to identify the city's (and the state's) hybrid culture, is often qualified: “Hispano-Floribbean,” “Afro-Floribbean,” “Indo-Floribbean.” Geoffrey Philp argues that a distinct “Floribbean literature” is emerging, characterized by “a particular type of anxiety—from nostalgia to anger—in the narrators, speakers, and/or main characters” (“Toward a Floribbean Literature”). 24Marley, “Rastaman Live Up,” Confrontation (1983). 25Philp, “For Brother Bob,” Dub Wise , 37. 27Philp, “version break,” xango music , 30. 31Gregory Stephens, “A ‘Second Emancipation’ Transfigured? Reflections on Bob Marley at 60,” (www.jahworks.org/music/features/bob_at_sixty.htm). 26That Marley should act as guide to Philp in ways both sacred and profane should be no surprise. As CitationCarolyn Cooper says, “one of the remarkable accomplishments of Marley's lyrics [is] the seriousness with which he treats sexual love” (127), so that, to quote CitationKendel Hippolyte, when Bob Marley sings “de dance-hall is a holy place” and “flesh to flesh is serious business” (“Antonette's Boogie,” in Wheel and Come Again , 101. 28Many people have written about this Bob Marley (see, for example, Roger Steffens, “Bob Marley: Rasta Warrior,” or Jason Toynbee, Bob Marley: Herald of a Postcolonial World ). 29Marley, “Chant Down Babylon,” Confrontation . 30Roger Steffens, “Bob Marley: Rasta Warrior,” in Chanting Down Babylon, ed.Nathaniel Samuel Murrell, William David Spencer, and Adrian Anthony McFarlane (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998), 264. 32Bob Marley, quoted in Jason Toynbee, Bob Marley: Herald of a Postcolonial World? (Cambridge: Polity, 2007), 169. 33Philp, “Heirlooms,” 36. 34Philp, “Heirlooms,” 36. 35Philp, “Heirlooms,” 36. The reference is to Marley's “No Woman, No Cry,” Natty Dread (1974). 37Marley, “Redemption Song,” Uprising (1980). 36Philp, “Heirlooms,” 36. 38 CitationA.A. McFarlane, “The Epistemological Significance of ‘I-an-I’ as a Response to Quashie and Anancyism in Jamaican Culture,” in Chanting Down Babylon , 113. 39For a full discussion of this rejection of Anancyism, see CitationA. A. Mcfarlane, “The Epistemological Significance of ‘I-an-I.’” 40For a discussion of the mechanics of this trick, see CitationHodges, Soon Come , 128-172. 43Philp, “sestina for bob,” 35. 41Philp, “sestina for bob,” xango music , 34-35. 42Philp, “sestina for bob,” 34. 44Philp, “bob marley in the day care center,” xango music , 54. Additional informationNotes on contributorsHugh Hodges Hugh Hodges is Associate Professor of English Literature at Trent University. His book on the relationship between Jamaican spirituality and Jamaican poetics, Soon Come, was published in 2008
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