Help Jeffrey Chock

Paramin blue devils in Port of Spain, Carnival Friday traditional parade, 1999, by Jeffrey Chock

Jeffrey Chock is one of Trinidad and Tobago's leading contemporary photographers. He is particularly well known for his work documenting Trinidad Carnival, theatre, and dance over the past three decades. Jeffrey's images are a crucial part of the Caribbean's cultural history, and his personal and professional knowledge of Trinidad's Carnival and performing arts is immense and irreplaceable.

Reviewing Chock's book Trinidad Carnival in the August 2006 CRB, Mark Lyndersay wrote: "His passion and intuitive understanding of the humanity that fuels the festival shine on every page." Philip Sander's review in the July/August 2006 Caribbean Beat said: "Spontaneous yet deliberate, finding the eerie in the pretty and the beautiful in the debased, and filled with faces transfigured by an emotion far more complicated than mere joy, the best of Chock’s photos are Carnival."

There are performing artists in Trinidad who will let no one but Jeffrey photograph their work. They understand his deep respect for them, and his devotion to his art. Jeffrey has inspired two generations of artists, and helped ensure their work will live on, though his photographs.

Now he needs help. Jeffrey recently suffered a major heart attack and was subsequently diagnosed with a series of medical problems requiring urgent--and expensive--intervention. Like many creative professionals in the Caribbean who have put art before income, he does not have health insurance to help in this time of crisis. It says a great deal about the affection and admiration that Trinidad's artistic community feels for him that various spontaneous initiatives have been launched to raise money to cover his medical bills. In coming weeks, there will be fundraising events of several kinds, and I will keep Antilles readers informed about these as they are announced.

Meanwhile, there are major medical bills already waiting to be paid, and Jeffrey needs cash right away. Georgia Popplewell has jump-started the fundraising process by setting up a ChipIn account, through which anyone with a credit card can make an immediate donation online--simply click on this widget:

Fundraising with ChipIn

As I write this, various well-wishers have already donated US$2,615, more than twenty per cent of the initial target of US$12,000. Donating is simple, safe--ChipIn uses PayPal's secure servers to received payments--and immediate. I urge all Antilles readers to consider making a donation, even a small one--to urgently support not just the work but the life of an important Caribbean artist.

Also:

- If you are a member of Facebook, join the Friends of Jeffrey Chock group to keep informed about fundraising efforts.

- Read a message from Jeffrey at Caribbean Free Radio, in which he explains the status of his health.

- If you would like to donate but don't have a credit card or don't feel comfortable using ChipIn, contact me directly at crb AT meppublishers DOT com (you know what to do with the AT and the DOT) and we'll arrange something.

- Finally, please forward this information to anyone who may be willing to help.

2009 CWP open for entries

The Commonwealth Foundation has announced that the 2009 Commonwealth Writers' Prize--for books of fiction written by Commonwealth citizens during the 2008 calendar year--is now open for entries. There's full information here, including eligibility requirements, deadlines, and the official application form. Caribbean writers with new novels and short story collections, please encourage your publishers to enter them!

Georgetown journal, part 3

Much to report, dear readers, on the last two days of Carifesta--highlights include a public sparring-match between Derek Walcott and Guyanese President Bharath Jagdeo--but first I want to share some disturbing news. The Living Guyana blog is reporting that journalist Neil Marks of the Guyana Times has been fired after writing a report critical of the Carifesta opening ceremony:

Security were called in to remove Marks from the Guyana Times offices yesterday and that he was prevented from accessing his assigned computer.

Living Guyana suggests this was the result of the newspaper proprietor's connections with the PPP government. I haven't read the article by Marks that supposedly got him dismissed, but I'm shocked at the idea of cultural commentary being silenced in this way. I'm trying to get more details of the case, and I hope that the regional press covering Carifesta will ask some hard questions of the Guyana Times.

Georgetown journal, part 2

"The ghost of Andrew Salkey wants a word with you," writes FSJL, commenting on my previous post. Yes, for this series of Carifesta reports I've deliberately borrowed the title of Salkey's extraordinary 1972 book Georgetown Journal, my copy of which was the first thing I put in my bag when I was packing for this trip. I think I've argued before, here at Antilles, that Georgetown Journal is an undeservedly neglected but absolutely crucial text--a detailed, intimate record of Guyana and the Caribbean at a key point in our post-independence history--but it is also a document of the genesis of Carifesta itself.

Salkey visited Guyana in February 1970, a guest of the Burnham government, one of a distinguished creative cohort invited to witness the inauguration of the Co-operative Republic, and attend the Caribbean Writers and Artists Conference that was to set the agenda for the first Caribbean Festival of Arts, then just a gleam in the region's collective eye. He spent two weeks here, attending meetings, lectures, performances, and caught in a whirl of nearly non-stop conversation about the future of Caribbean societies and the role of the region's artists. His transcripts of these conversations form the bulk of his book--we hear the voices of, among many others, Sam Selvon, John La Rose, Philip Moore, Wilson Harris, Beryl McBurnie, Karl Parboosingh, and many ordinary Guyanese Salkey happened to fall in with. It all adds up to a rich, dense, wry, penetrating summary of the ideas and ideals that fed Carifesta 1972--required reading for anyone wishing to understand Carifesta as it has evolved over the last thirty-six years.

Anyway, back to the present, and Carifesta X. Saturday 23 was the first full day of the festival, though some elements don't yet seem to be up and running. The book fair, for instance, at which five new books were scheduled to be launched (at least according to the literary programme I got my hands on). Accompanied by my friend Lisa Allen-Agostini--writer, anthologist, also visiting from Trinidad--I made my way to the book fair site at the National Park near the Sea Wall, only to find a series of all but empty tents. There were posters and banners announcing various publishers and groups, but the book tables were bare, and the afternoon's launches had all been postponed.

The other major literary event of the day was a two-hour reading session in the evening, at the Umana Yana. Pauline Melville was scheduled to open the programme, and I would have loved to hear her, but instead I made my way to the Oasis Café on Carmichael Street for the launch of Ruel Johnson's new book, Fictions. Except--ah! the trials of publishing--the printers had missed their deadline and the books hadn't arrived. I joked with Ruel that people might think Fictions was really a fiction. So what started as a book launch turned into a good-natured liming session for the author's friends and guests. Ruel's readers will just have to wait until Wednesday, when there is a second launch scheduled, part of the official Carifesta book fair programme.

So in truth I didn't get up to much Carifesting yesterday. And, like many people I encounter around Georgetown, I'm still trying to make sense of the long, complicated schedule of events, a few conflicting versions of which seem to be in circulation. The more energetic are trying to dash from reading to performance to screening, zigzagging across the city in an effort to take it all in. I'm far less ambitious--my plan is to choose one or at most two events per day, meander slowly between venues, and enjoy frequent serendipitous meetings with friends and colleagues. Actually, it's those informal conversations that happen around and in between the official programme that I enjoy most--on Friday, for instance, I spent the afternoon with Ruel and the Guyanese litblogger Charmaine Valere, and yesterday I was given an impromptu tour of the Theatre Guild building by Ameena Gafoor, the Guyanese literary scholar and editor of The Arts Journal--followed by lunch with Ameena, Lisa, and the engineer (and raconteur) Bert Carter, who rebuilt the Theatre Guild. Today I may make another try at the book fair before I head to the grand opening of the Carifesta symposium series--featuring Derek Walcott, Edward Baugh, Ian McDonald, Cynthia McLeod, and Kenneth Ramchand.

But first--it is a grey, rainy morning in Georgetown--another cup of coffee.