ITS OVER Guys, this writer’s block is serious. To all of you who supported me ‘’sin fin’’ during the years, from the heart out: The few international magazines I published translations in, my current wife, friends who understand the struggle, family: I want to inform you that after 40 years I’m done with writing literature, I finished writing poetry. This is it, it’s of no use. I am from a small Caribbean island with great creole potential, with a potent cultural mix, but divided to the bone, in the spirit of colonial Holland. In recent years, while spiritually on another track already, I kept going back to the realm of ego: I am a writer, no matter what. Writing engaged and serious poetry in Creole (Papiamentu) is extremely difficult if one works in isolation, far from home, and if English isn’t even celebrated as a second (literary) language back home. What I blame my country for is one thing: A low level of consciousness when it comes to creole identity, when we talk about the Caribbean as a whole. In Curaçao there is no real back up for artists who don’t belong to the established order, a society of upper class ‘’intellectuals’’ who hijacked art and have taken it from the people, unglued it from political struggle even, linked it eternally to Dutch cultural institutions. I’ve said all on my blog ‘’Ban Liber, and on Facebook: There are no literary editorials in Krioyo, writers turn to Dutch to write in, or stop, or simply disappear. For me it’s the other way around. As I said before, while the Creole language of my birthplace is not my mother tongue, years ago I turned to Papiamentu, I left behind stage and all possibilities to publish in ‘’our’’ colonial language, because Dutch is a colonial language, and chose Creole (Papiamentu) as my vehicle in Poetry. I am where I begun, for the simple reason that I choose not to self publish my work. I have my reasons. Building identity with poetry and prose is obstructed by taboos, racism, and distrust between groups, and lack of funds back home. Every writer from my country will have a different experience, but living abroad and not wanting to do concessions to how things need to be for a small country within this socalled kingdom of the Netherlands, this is mine. As a poet, while being a strong poetry performer even, I’m off stage for years because of these forces within our boundaries. I am not running away from what I have to do, it’s a conscious decision to stop writing under these circumstances. Some will call me a coward, as I took the decision a few weeks ago to stop writing in Papiamentu already. There are so much possibilities to publish in literary journals for me, internationally...but this is what the Spirit is telling me: Your time as a Caribbean-Kòrsoulese poet is over, for less ego, more spiritual art under these circumstances, and all the other better reasons. I will have to lay down my pen, my work is sealed in a box as long as my island nation and its people are in limbo. This is the way I chose it to be. For me this is the past. Again, I humbly thank you for all your support during my writing years. It will be hard not to pick up my pen, but it is finished. Kaitano Sarah
Posted on: Mon, 24 Feb 2014 15:36:16 +0000
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