SAVE COWPASTOR (link here)

Kamau Brathwaite in Dire Need of Help

[transposed from K. Silem Mohammad: "I'm forwarding this urgent message I just received from Tisa Bryant" (link~> here for original posting)]*


Dear All,

Kamau Brathwaite is a treasure of a human being, a brilliant scholar and magnificent poet. He has long been battling the Barbados government to keep his land, Cow Pastor, in Christ Church parish, and now, in his 70s, it looks like he may lose it, which puts his livelihood, his home, and his archive of Caribbean literature and literary history at risk.

His tone is bleak, and frightened. He's talking about burning himself upon the land, and is clearly asking for community support. Please write to him at kb5@nyu.edu, urge other poets and artists who care to write to him, and simply tell him you support him, and ask him what he needs to save his land, not what he's doing to save his land. He is asking for academics, poets, artists, to come to Cow Pastor, see what's happening there, and help him mobilize to save it. If you know artists and writers in Barbados, please contact them and urge them to help.

If you can do this, do this.

Thanks!

Tisa

***
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. -
Martin Luther King Jr., "The Trumpet of Conscience", 1967

---
Tom Raworth created a site to help Mr. Brathwaite, link provided above.

Other responses:

Lisa Jarnot~> here

Jordan Stempleman~> here, and here

Joshua Corey~> here

Ron Silliman~> here