It took nearly two hours for her audience to begin to plumb the professional depths of Jamaican Canadian artist and educator, Dr Lillian Allen. And even at the end of the session, we knew precious little about her personal life.<\/p>\n
Gathered in the multi-purpose room of the main library of The University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona, we learnt early from her introducer, Dr Lisa Tomlinson, a UWI lecturer, that her substantive post in her adopted country is professor of creative writing at the Ontario College of Art and Design University. It\u2019s one of the top institutions of higher learning in Canada.<\/p>\n
But there was much more to come in the multi-purpose event \u2013 a combination poetry reading, interview of Dr Allen by sister poet Dr Opal Palmer Adisa and Dr Tomlinson, and a Q & A session with the audience. It was hosted by the UWI\u2019s Department of Literatures in English, and the welcome was given by Senior Lecturer Dr Isis Semaj Hall.<\/p>\n
In a brief, too-modest comment on the scope of her poetry, Professor Allen said, \u201cI write about what\u2019s happening in the Toronto community, particularly the black communities.\u201d Then she launched into a reading of published and new work. Delivered mainly in dub poetry\/hip hop style, the poems were both striking in form and strident in content.<\/p>\n
The stylistic features were the ones common to dub poetry, including the repetition of words and phrases, the extension of the endings of words, the drawing out of sounds, sing-song speech, an immoderate use of puns and unexpected rhyming. It\u2019s all very rhythmic, very musical.<\/p>\n
Among other things, Allen\u2019s poetry inveighs against the system that oppresses black as well as Canada\u2019s indigenous people, domestic violence, chauvinism and police abuse. Her shortest poem,\u00a0Feminism 101<\/strong>, reads: \u201cInstead of being the door mat\/Get up\/Be the door.\u201d Another, longer, poem with the same message of resistance was\u00a0I Fight Back<\/strong>, which, she said, was her most anthologised poem. Her first dub poem,\u00a0Rhythm and Hard Times<\/strong>, about police shooting a black man who was mentally challenged, while in his home, and the huge protest that ensued, opened the scope of her poetry greatly, she said.<\/p>\n She told\u00a0The Jamaica Gleaner\u00a0<\/strong>that among the poets who influenced her work were Jamaican performance poets Linton Kwesi Johnson, Jean \u2018Binta\u2019 Breeze and Mutabaruka, as well as the more literary poets Mervyn Morris and Kamau Brathwaite.<\/p>\n Dr Tomlinson said that the Spanish Town-born Allen became in Canada \u201ca beacon of creative expression and cultural activism\u201d with work that was \u201ccharacterised by a distinctive style and diverse themes, consistently reflects an unwavering commitment to social justice\u201d.<\/p>\n Elaborating on this, Dr Tomlinson said that Allen\u2019s creative work \u201cintricately weaves together identity, race, and empowerment for disenfranchised communities. Though her poetry and music may provoke discomfort by highlighting contentious topics impacting Caribbean communities, they authentically speak to the heart of social reality and the lived experiences of Caribbean people in Canada, particularly in Toronto.\u201d<\/p>\n For her work in dub poetry, Allen won the Juno Award for Best Reggae\/Calypso Album for\u00a0Revolutionary Tea Party<\/strong>\u00a0in 1986 and\u00a0Conditions Critical<\/strong>\u00a0in 1988. Dr Allen told the audience that in 1992 she organised the First International Dub Poetry Festival in Toronto and was honoured by the League of Canadian Poets as \u201cthe foremother of Canadian poetry\u201d.<\/p>\n Addressing Dr Allen\u2019s influence on youth, Dr Tomlinson said: \u201cApart from her achievements in poetry and performance, Dr Allen paved the way for a new generation of artists by channeling her energy in the establishment of community-building youth programs, such as Fresh Arts. This initiative empowered and nurtured the talents of black youths, playing a crucial role in fostering some of Canada\u2019s top hip hop acts, including Kardinal Offishall.\u201d<\/p>\n She added that as a professor, Dr Allen encourages students to use their creativity as \u201ca catalyst for revolution\u201d.<\/p>\n In concluding her introduction, Dr Tomlinson gave us a glimpse at Dr Allen\u2019s influence internationally: \u201cDr Lillian Allen\u2019s performances span across television, film, radio, and print media on a global scale, adding to the resonating impact of her voice in literature and socio-cultural dialogue worldwide.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It took nearly two hours for her audience to begin to plumb the professional depths of Jamaican Canadian artist and educator, Dr Lillian Allen. And even at the end of the session, we knew precious little about her personal life. Gathered in the multi-purpose room of the main library of The University of the West […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":7343,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[240,239],"tags":[82],"class_list":["post-7348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-canadian-news","category-international-news","tag-featured"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7348"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7349,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7348\/revisions\/7349"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}