ST. JOHN, Bruce (Carlisle)

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Nationality: Barbadian. Born: Barbados, West Indies, 24 December 1923. Education: St. Giles' Boys' School, Combermere Secondary School, and Harrison College, 1929–42; Loughborough College, Leicestershire, England, 1945–47, External B.A. (University of London), 1953; Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto, 1956; University of Toronto, 1962–64, M.A. in Spanish 1964. Family: Married Ruby Marjorie Skeete in 1959 (divorced 1981); one daughter and one son. Career: Assistant master, St. Giles' Boys' School, 1942–44, and Combermere School, 1944–64; lecturer, 1964–75, and since 1976 senior lecturer in Spanish, University of the West Indies, Bridgetown, Barbados. Member, National Council for Arts and Culture, Barbados. Awards: Yaddo grant, 1972, 1976, 1978; Yoruba Foundation prize, 1973. Address: P.O. Box 64, Bridgetown, Barbados, West Indies.

Publications

Poetry

The Foetus Pains. Bridgetown, EP, 1972.

The Foetus Pleasures. Bridgetown, EP, 1972.

Bruce St. John at Kairi House. Port of Spain, Kairi, 1974; revised edition, 1975.

Joyce and Eros and Varia. Bridgetown, Yoruba Press, 1976.

Bumbatuk 1. Bridgetown, Cedar Press, 1982.

Play

The Vests (produced Bridgetown, 1977; Manchester, 1980)

Other

Por el Mar de las Antillas: A Spanish Course for Caribbean Secondary Schools. London, Nelson, 1978.

Editor, with Beverley A. Steele, Tim Tim Tales: Children's Stories from Grenada, West Indies. St. George's, Grenada, University of West Indies Extra Mural Department, 1976.

Editor, with others, Aftermath: An Anthology. Greenfield Center, New York, Greenfield Review Press, 1977.

Editor, Caribanthology 1. Bridgetown, Cedar Press, 1981.

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Critical Studies: "The Poetry of Bruce St. John" by Michael Gitkes, in Tapia (Port of Spain), 15 June 1975; "Sex and Class in the Poetry of Bruce St. John" by Elaine Fido, in Tapia (Port of Spain), 24 August 1975; "If Barbados Could Speak" by Robert L. Morris, in Manjak 9 and 10 (Bridgetown), 1975; introduction by Christopher David, to Bruce St. John at Kairi House, 1975.

Bruce St. John comments:

In my poetry in Barbadian dialect I try to express viewpoints on Barbadian human situations in the natural language of Barbadians as they actually speak it, according to my knowledge of the Barbadian dialect lexicon and its structure of thought and speech. Each poem is tested and retested in sound before, during, and after its composition. The views expressed are not always my own; they are our views as Barbadians.

In my poetry in English I tend to express my own views in Barbadian speech rhythms and in an English that is my own, in that I choose and position words in order to say effectively what I want to say. In short, I strive to develop a language of my own in order to express myself. In my English poems I give fully the whole range of my experience and draw on my exposure to other cultures. I restrict this range somewhat in my dialect poems.

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Dialect has been used in Caribbean poetry from the beginning, as it were, when plantocratic poets and poetasters attempted to reproduce the "broken lingo" of their black servants and slaves. Although Louise Bennett began writing and reciting exclusively in dialect verse in the early 1940s, there was still, as late as the mid-1960s, a passionate debate as to whether patois could be used as the language of serious poetry. Edward Brathwaite's Rights of Passage (1967) appeared to settle the matter, but it was not until the poets of the 1970s, above all Bruce St. John, a former concert singer and physical education instructor and a lecturer in Spanish at the University of the West Indies, that "nation-language" came into its own.

Conceived of and used as an alternative to "bad," or "bongo," grammar, nation-language appeals to a large, increasingly culturally conscious audience to such a degree that it is practically unthinkable today for any serious Caribbean poet not to at least include it in his work. In doing so, Caribbean poets move closer and closer stylistically to the kaiso and reggae singers, who have always assumed the native to be the norm. The miracle of nation-language at its poetic best is that it not only reproduces the language of the people but also reaches and reechoes their inner vibrations and very bones, so that words, psyche, and sense become involved. As he should, the nation-poet expresses the total culture of his subject in word, soul, and body language.

The dialogue and dramatic monologue are natural to the culture, and Bennett always used the forms. But what St. John adds is a sense of superstructure. The dialogue forms a litany that in itself becomes a commentary on the Bajan personality, and the language is intensified not only through form but also through the investigation of contemporary political and moral issues that are juxtaposed against traditional norms expressed through proverb and riddle. This happens, for example, in "Bajan Litany":

Follow pattern kill Cadogan. Yes, Lord.
America got black power? O Lord.
We got black power. Yes, Lord.
Wuh sweeten goat mout bun'e tail … O Lord.
Jamaica got industry? O Lord.
We got industry. Yes Lord.
Jamaica got bauxite? (Silence)
(Louder) Jamaica got bauxite?...Yes, Lord.
De higher monkey go, de more he show 'e tail.

St. John tackles traditional subjects such as kite flying, cricket, sea bathing, and the other woman and more modern issues such as the ambiguities of postcolonial politics and the constantly vexing question of Bajan education (contrasted with the more native studyation). Everything is said in a way that allows us to see and hear for the first time from the inside, as it were, through the persona of Archie. Archie/St. John are aware that education and language are intimately connected, and the respect for this connection says more about one's cultural authenticity than any politician or pedagogue ever could. Consider, for example, these lines from "Bajan Language":

Evah language got a rhythm but Bajan
Lick guitar drum an banjo stiff wid blows
Imag'ry purty an sweet like a rose

Limey try fuh muck up we poor nation
But Bajan save we life so here we goes...

St. John is as Bajan as Miss Lou is Jamaican and as Paul Keens-Douglas is Trinidadian, and yet they all transcend territorial boundaries to capture and express the spirit of the Caribbean. It is in this both new and ancient tradition of word seers and sound poets that the future of Caribbean poetry lies. But the body of their poetry will have to be constantly enriched, as is being done, with the emerging underground resources of culture itself.

—Edward Kamau Brathwaite