Channer looks back at Calabash

Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

Two weeks ago it was announced that after being staged for 10 continuous years in Treasure Beach, St Elizabeth, the Calabash International Literary Festival will no longer be held. In an email interview, Calabash founder and artistic director, author and lecturer Colin Channer spoke to The Sunday Gleaner about the festival.

Since there was a 10-year commitment to the Calabash International Literary Festival, why wasn't an announcement made last year that it would be the final staging?

Calabash was a not-for-profit festival with free admission that was run by unpaid volunteers. The secret to our success was planning. We planned in five-year increments. We did a self-assessment after Calabash 2005 and made adjustments that resulted in the second five years being even more spectacular than the first five. We did a scheduled self-assessment after Calabash 2010, after which we made a decision to bring the festival to a close. We'd achieved our mission of "transforming the literary arts in the Caribbean" by example. We saw where we had inspired new literary festivals in Jamaica, Trinidad, Antigua, Dominica and Montserrat, to name a few places. In addition, we had no outstanding debts. We were in the black. Several young writers who had come through our workshops or who had read at the festival in their years of apprenticeship such as Marlon James, Kei Miller, Tanya Shirley, Ishion Hutchinson and Millicent Graham had gone on to publish books of great quality. As we looked around us and behind us we felt assured that we'd made significant social, artistic and economic contribution to thousands of people in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean. But as we looked ahead of us we saw that the next five years were uncertain ones for our supporters, and also that our lives as individuals had become more complicated, and that we may not be able to dedicate the same amount of energy and time.

Had Calabash reached a plateau and would it have become increasingly difficult to maintain the standard of the authors/readings?

In fact the opposite was true. Because of the festival's growing reputation, we became inundated with overtures from even more of the world's leading writers than before. That reputation was built on the size, enthusiasm and intelligence of our diverse audience, the diligence and dedication of the staff of Jake's and the warm hospitality of the community-minded people of Treasure Beach. Look, Wole Soyinka appeared at Calabash 2010. That doesn't sound like what happens at a festival in the plateau stage to me.

Could you tabulate the festival's tangible achievements, such as book reissues?

The tangible achievements are many - new and upgraded hotel rooms in Treasure Beach, millions of dollars worth of positive press in the international media for Jamaica, payments to suppliers of services such as tents, chairs, audio equipment and salaries paid to scores of short-term workers hired just before, during and for a few days after festival time.

But let's look at books. In 2004, we were responsible for bringing Roger Mais' novel, Brotherman, into print again through a deal with Macmillan. In 2005, we did the same for John Hearne's Voices Under the Window. That same year, with a grant from the Reed Foundation, we published under our own imprint six chapbooks of poetry by members of the Calabash Writers Workshop. Here we're talking about Bryans Bay by Ishion Hutchinson; Weights and Measures by Niki Johnson; In Disguise by Andrew Stone; Gateman by Blakka Ellis; Light in a Book of Stone by Mbala and Soft Flesh by Saffron.

We have three major Jamaican novels brought back to life after their original publishers had let them lapse out of print. In 2006, Akashic Books published Iron Balloons, an anthology of short stories by members of the Calabash Writers Workshop and their tutors. In 2009, we were responsible for bringing Neville Dawes' novel The Last Enchantment into print again through a deal with Peepal Tree Books. In 2010, Akashic published the poetry anthology So Much Things to Say, which featured a hundred poems by a hundred poets who'd read at the Bash. We can also look at books published by Calabash Writers Workshop alums or writers who read at Calabash in their pre-publication apprentice years, such as Marlon James, Beverly East, Kei Miller, Millicent Graham and Ishion Hutchinson.

What is the festival's contribution to the standard of staging the arts in Jamaica?

I can say that we certainly paid great attention to staging. Whether or not our model reset the bar is not something to which I can speak.

What are your top 10 Calabash moments?

My top 10 Calabash moments. The yellow butterflies that stayed with us for the entire festival in the first year. Witnessing Perry Henzell and Amiri Baraka argue about race while their wives looked at each other with that "I feel your pain sister" look. Wole Soyinka and Paul Holdengraber clinking Red Stripe bottles before their onstage interview. The look on technical director John Dacosta's face the first time he understood that whenever I called him a genius it meant I was about to ask him to do an impossible thing that the audience would think was easy. Staceyann Chin reading with the Honourable Edward Seaga. Caryl Phillips, Maryse Condé and Michael Ondaatje reading in a rainstorm. A local eccentric wandering onstage while having a private conversation into a seashell as Tony Rebel performed. The first time Seretse Small joined Ibo Cooper, Wayne Armond and Stevie Golding in the Calabash Acoustic Ensemble. Kathy Owens' performance in the staged reading of Kwame Dawe's play The Stump of the Terebinth. Myrna Hague closing Calabash 2010 with Redemption Song. Every time it was just me, Justine and Kwame in Sweet Lip, the room at Jakes that was the festival headquarters, arguing and laughing and arguing again while eating banana chips and oranges and drinking Ting.

Do you regret that yourself and Kwame Dawes did not read on Calabash more than you did?

Kwame and I are actually proud of the fact that we did not read more at Calabash. We agreed to read in the first year because doing so saved the festival two plane tickets. Justine and I had to twist various parts of Kwame to get him to read a second time. Calabash was not created for its creators, but for other writers and the public. We established a four-year rule at the festival for all authors. Four years must pass before an author could be considered for another invitation. This was a mechanism to keep the festival fresh and diverse and to head off the kind of lazy programming that creates and maintains cliques. Kwame and I added two extra years for ourselves. We just took it as normal that we wouldn't be reading onstage, although we remained quite productive during the Calabash years.

You once wrote that in year one some came with folded arms and left with open arms of embrace. Was the festival ever fully embraced by the Jamaican literature-related academia and was it important that they endorse Calabash?

Calabash became everybody's festival over the years, because it showed itself to be in touch and interested in everybody with a genuine interest in literature. Looking back at those early years, I can understand why there might have been suspicion. For one, a literary festival on the scale of Calabash had not been attempted before. A literary festival with the spirit of Calabash had not been attempted before. Change is often unsettling. So yes, Jamacademia took us into its full embrace. Even a kiss or two were exchanged.

How do you score your sound system clashes with Mutabaruka and what will you do with the unsold Calabash T-Shirts?

Ahhh. The sound clashes. We tied the first time. He beat me the second. What I really want to say about Muta though, is that he was one of the spiritual icons of Calabash, for his work as an artiste and believer in the spirit of reggae as a guiding force for many things creative. Other spiritual icons are Neville Dawes, Perry Henzell, Carolyn Cooper, Barry Chevannes and Pat Ramsay. Unsold T-shirts? There were none!

Tanya Stephens was the only music performer who was invited as a poet. Why and is there any other deejay else the festival would have invited if it had continued?

Tanya is a gifted and accomplished writer. We see no natural barrier between poets who work with music and those who don't. With those who rhyme and those who write in blank verse. Kwame and I once had a fascinating conversation with the poet Rodney Price. We were very interested in having him in conversation about his process. Deejays are hard to pin down though. They are either booked way in advance or at short notice, which makes scheduling difficult, especially when you're asking them to perform without a fee.

Is there anything else you wish to put on record about the Calabash International Literary Festival?

Justine, Kwame and I decided to take on a mission in 2001. Nobody asked us to do this. We took on that mission out of love. After Calabash 2010, we looked at our achievements behind us and the landscape ahead of us and came to the conclusion that our mission had been accomplished, and that it had been accomplished because our commercial and philanthropic sponsors, the media, the staff of Jakes, the community of Treasure Beach, the contingent of domestic and international writers and performers who agreed to share their work at no cost, and the thousands of people who came to see them, believed in the nobility of this undertaking. And because of this we were able to create the greatest little festival in the greatest little district in the greatest little country in the world.