69-y-o sends messages to society through poems

Karen Sudu, Gleaner Writer

GORDON PEN, St Catherine:

FEARING SHE might lose a thought, Curline 'Blossom' Thomas is always armed with an exercise book and a pen.

"I write about real-life situations. I go to church with my book and pen and observe everyone, and I write - same with the police station, the traffic police, the transportation system, the hospital, the politicians. I also write about our athletes," she said proudly.

Notably, the 69-year-old, who lives in Gordon Pen, St Catherine, has penned her tribute and eulogy, until further notice, she told The Gleaner.

"I am a no-nonsense person, so when I die, I want people to know about the true me - what I was about. I don't want anybody to pretty up anything for me. I will do all of that for myself. When I was glad or was mad, I wrote about all of those things in my eulogy and tribute," she said.

Dream deferred

As a young girl growing up in Kingston, where she was born, Blossom's dream was to become a nurse.

"When I was a little girl going to Rousseau Primary School near Maxfield Avenue, where I was living with my dad and stepmother, I wanted to be a nurse, but I was ill-treated by my stepmother. I had to leave school at age 13 because my stepmother's daughter got pregnant at 14, and she stopped me to keep her company at home," the despondent senior recounted.

She noted, too, that she also harboured the thought of becoming a writer during her school life, but didn't pen her first poem, High Hopes, until August 2, 1995.

"It's about the Government of this country which the people elected. They voted, and instead of getting something that they voted for, it's only promises and nothing to reach out to. It's like their lives are derailed because of the promises by the elected representatives, which were never fulfilled," she explained.

Impressed with the remarkable performance of Jamaica's athletes in international meets over recent years, the sport enthusiast was inspired to pen Footprints on November 12, 2004. One verse reads:

Run Veronica run

Mi sey fi bring gold come

No badda go slide and den go tumble dung

Four girls on the relay team

Have spectators a halla an a scream

Unoo a go inna one foreign country

Oonu nuh have no bady fi call family

Show di world oonu full of versatility

On December 2, 2007, Blossom was moved to write The Policeman.

"One Sunday, a policeman got shot on Old Harbour Road and I just think back ... Watching them and hearing society on a whole discriminating against them, people don't stop to think that police are human beings ... ," she said.

Here comes the police clad so neat in his uniform

Patrolling our town so quietly and calm

Risk his life for our sake

A colleague has just gone

He is somebody's father

He is also somebody's son

Society holds him at ransom

That's not fun

Whenever Thomas gets the chance, she shares her poems with residents of Gordon Pen. In fact, sports and community advocate, Leon Campbell, has been guiding her as she seeks to stamp her mark on the industry.

Getting experience

"I have been taking her around to different functions where they have poetry going on so that she can get the experience on how to present them, and so on. Her poems are good, but she needs someone to help her to refine them, put them together and copyright them ... ," Campbell told The Gleaner.

While she is appreciative of the opportunity to market her work in her locale, the mother of 10, who peddled dry goods in her earlier years to raise her children, yearns for the rest of Jamaica to know about her work.

"My poems are sending a message to society and the whole world. I have written more than 20 and I really need someone to help me to publish them and share them with Jamaica," she added.

Cynthia Dennis, principal of Sunshine Early Childhood Centre in Gordon Pen, describes Blossom's work as motivational.

"I think her poems are good. At her age, I think she is very creative and inspirational. So if anybody can help to publish her poems, I think they should. That would be very nice," Dennis shared with The Gleaner.

rural@gleanerjm.com

PHOTOS BY KAREN SUDU