Daring To Swim The Murky Depths...

I’ve been here at the Cropper Foundation’s 10th Residential Writer’s Retreat for a week now, basking in the intense privilege of creating work and community with a small group of other Caribbean writers – talking politics and sharing intimate nonsense, laughing and crying alongside each other through the work of our hands, while the Atlantic Ocean’s waves grow to a roar as day turns to night.

Taken at the Cropper Foundation Residential Writers Retreat 2019 at Camp Balandra.

I’ve also been wallowing in the challenging bits of this same community. Most notably of them is the fact that, like any other community, there is just as much likelihood that the people in it are harmful to those who trust and Love them. Perhaps they, like the ocean’s waves, are inevitable, and are more than powerful to pull down those who dare to tread among them.

My mentor, poet, columnist and Cropper alumnus Colin Robinson wrote about it last month, about not knowing what to do or say about sexual predation in the literary space. It was something we spoke about prior to his writing in fact, and I admitted that while in some places I felt comfortable with the words I knew to say, in other places I also felt like I didn’t have the tools or guts to speak out.

Some would claim that an allegation can sometimes be a nebulous thing, impossible to get to root of and pull up. Some allegations are too old, or too extreme, or too…something…for us to get to the bottom of. How could I, for instance, truly respond to sexual assault allegations against Derek Walcott, some of which date to long before my parents even met, much less when I was born? And what would that even mean? He’s already dead, incapable of being held accountable. And I still participate in a literary legacy that is informed by his stellar poetry, work that I could never ignore the impact of no matter what he’s done.

But even when you choose to speak out, sharp blades wait at the end of your words. It didn’t sit well when people reminded us of Walcott’s harassment, or Junot Diaz’s abuse. Even now, after making it a personal code of mine to speak out against similar injustices, I still find it hard to say the names of those culpable for the things I see and know as abuse. It’s cost me relationships, publications…even got me called into a hostile meeting with the head of the largest literary organization in the English-speaking Caribbean, trying to coerce me to falsely admit to slander. In that same meeting, I was told to convince victims of harassment and assault – girls barely past the age of consent – that it would be ‘better for them’ to not seek legal action for the hurt they experienced. This is the literary landscape we live in.

I’m not saying that there are more Derek Walcotts than Colin Robinsons. But there is enough of them, and enough places where they are made to feel like gods, that others must rightly wonder what other fierce creatures swim right under the waves, poised to devour those who might swim its depths.

And I dare.

Just as important as pondering these issues is not letting it discourage those with genuine stories to tell. Not only do we create a new culture of the writing space by populating it ourselves, with frightful honesty and sincerity, we fill up the space with people are who (hopefully, at least) better capable of recognizing those who do harm to others within the community. It’s too hopeful to say they would feel so uncomfortable that they would leave our space of truth, but maybe enough that they feel challenged. Challenged by our work, by our voices, by our presence. When we dare to be here, we also dare those near us to be better, and dare those who won’t to let themselves be known and face the truth.

And that’s the challenge for myself, now, as I sit among some of the brightest, most thoughtful creative writers I’ve ever met; writers that hopefully I will be entering the published world of literature alongside. These are the waters I want to swim in forever, with these people as my depth-daring friends. And I dare.  That’s part of why this is so important to me; not only is speaking out the right thing to do, and something we must learn to do, but it is how we create and maintain communities of Compassion. In these depths, we hold others accountable for the waves they make (even me at my most blunt and reckless), because those waves can steal someone’s very breath.

I dare to do just that. Now, it’s just to learn how.