“It is the problem of this era, the way the ever-changing present seems to render the past irrelevant and, as a consequence, the dislocation of the reader for whom the question becomes not merely ‘where is here?’ but ‘what is now?’” - Gordon Rohlehr

“So I write, exhausted, this closure of cycles, this steady perfection of all our fables. I write the end of yesterday and watch the omen of tomorrow unfold in this strange shattering of today. Is I, Bookman…keeping the fate, trodding still the broken path toward nothing.” - Gordon Rohlehr

Peggy Antrobus is a Caribbean daughter with an illustrious career in community-building, academia and international development. She is a figure in the global women's rights movements and helped build the blocks of Caribbean feminism + our regional gender mechanisms.

In my ongoing celebration of the living legend Merle Hodge, I give respect to her + all Caribbean women authors on International Women's Day. What was Caribbean society set to gain when Caribbean women gave their imagination in fiction writing? 🧵

"Listen, pay attention [to] every word. Every magical moment is a poem, is a lyric. The way she walks is a lyric. The way he talks is a lyric." - David Rudder (2022)

"When people say, 'you write great poetry.' Because I listened to the people. The nuts lady had something to say. You know? And I have to pay respects to my first university, better known as Freetown, Belmont." - David Rudder(2022)

"I went away Ah leave and ah come back home Ah come back to stay Ah must see meh way" - André Tanker, Back Home

"americana, antillana, boricua, para SIEMPRE." - Roque Raquel Salas Rivera

Thank you to the Commonwealth Alliance of Youth Workers’ Associations for this recognition of my contribution to youth work in the Caribbean & Americas Region. More heart, more space, more recognition of the self in the other, less ego. We only win with love.

Tka Pinnock and I co-organised "Future Orientations: Canada-Finland Symposium for Emerging Scholars in Caribbean Studies Research." The symposium brought together 20+ scholars, researchers and activists to discuss new directions in Caribbean Studies. www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSjb...

My chapter, "Reflections on Men's Organising to End Gender-based Violence in the Caribbean," takes stock of my understandings, feelings and lessons learnt engaging Caribbean men and boys for gender equality 'all ova de place'. www.uwipress.com/978976658028...

I've always wanted to have creative works published in Callaloo Journal. My two poems, "Sunday Morning, Sea Lots" and "Funeral of a Zesser," have found a home alongside other literary works. muse.jhu.edu/article/980700

Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival built a stage for me to walk listeners through carnival in spoken word. If you tune in, you will hear calypso, soca, Midnight Robber talk, and the creative imagination of a Caribbean people in hypercolour. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...

I had a lovely time with Alexandria Miller discussing the regional context of Hair Codes + Grooming Policies in Secondary Schools in the Caribbean. This is not a theoretical topic for me. episodes.strictlyfactspod.com/1562981/epis...

"Take me to the river, Take me to the sea, Wash over me, Music, Wash over me. Take me to the river, take me to the river, Wash over me, Music, wash over me." - Freetown Collective

"Let me at least fail at my life. Think, they say patiently, we could make you famous again. Let me fall in love one last time, I beg them. Teach me mortality, frighten me into the present. Help me to find the heft of these days. That the nights will be full enough and my heart feral." -Jack Gilbert

"How should we like it were stars to burn With a passion for us we could not return? If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me" - W.H. Auden

My Uncle Gerard Sanatan has entered that final door of life. He was my soft-spoken, "big limer," handsome uncle who loved a good song, a dance, a curry, and his family. It is always difficult being away from family when you lose someone.

On Friday 27th February, 2026, we are hosting "Future Orientations: Canada-Finland Symposium for Emerging Scholars in Caribbean Studies Research."

James Van Der Beek 😭😭😭😭 Sleep well 🙏🏿

Bad Bunny. Thank you 👑 Caribbean icon. Unapologetic.

2026 Soca is definitely the best post-pandemic offering for carnival. It took us 5 years to find form, it seems. But, the landscape has evolved dramatically. "Sub-genres" of Trinibad, "new calypso," dancehall and reggae have fully crossed over into the Fete and Road mainstream.

"There is so much of value that we have created for which there is no place in the society we should be building. So trapped are we in the self-contempt of the colonial condition that we can’t even see the wonder of ourselves." - Sunity Maharaj

One of the songs the Jackson 5 authored in their post-Motown career. The end was near. Michael had the freedom to write his own songs. They were men in a former "boy band." moved to his Michael Jackson era. But, this is a lovely dance song. Mellow mood. www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiVy...

"Front page is where legends belong, but backstage is where legends are born. Look how much security, is like the stage frighten ah we.” - Machel Montano, Encore 👑 🇹🇹

Machel Montano is making his move to be the Monarch of all Road March Monarchs. "Carnival Birthday" with Superblue + Kernal Roberts is jam + tribute to Lord Kitchener’s legacy. Montano is honouring the past while preparing to surpass it. Soca history in the making.

We leaving these behind in 2025. Giving thanks, Almilcar. 😘

Him: You're from the West Indies. Me: Yes. And you? Him: Nepal. Me: Nice to meet you. I haven't met many people from Nepal. But I get to meet quite a number of people from Pakistan, Sri Lanka and India over here. We talk about cricket. Him: Yes. You look like Chris Gayle

Merry Christmas 🥰 www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cnM...

"I'm just glad to be a part of something pure and ethical basketball" - Victor Wembanyama

Colonial postcards, Jamaican dancehall in Helsinki, gold chains, Derek Walcott's "Fragments of Epic Memory," and Siddiqi & Blackburn's ethnography at "intimate and familiar scales." I thoroughly enjoyed delivering "The Politics of the Ordinary" at the University of Helsinki.

The keynote address at the 2025 Dutch Black Scholars Conference was a positive vibration. My presentation title was: Flâneur Noir, Flâneur Antillais: Walking (A)way in the World. "Fortunate Traveller"? Oui. dekanttekening.nl/samenleving/...

New artwork and poetry alert 🙂 Poems and paintings about Finland published in Public 72, edited by good vibrations Dr. Shauna Sea and Nadine Valcin. Pre-order for journal: publicjournal.ca/product/72-s...

The Shallow Tales Review reproduced my artwork "groomed in a postcolony." This work was first exhibited in Trinidad and Tobago at ThinkArtWork studio. theshallowtalesreview.com.ng/groomed-in-a...

Good news. I came out on top as a winner of the UK-based Poetry Archive Worldview 2025 competition. "Ihmeköynnös" is a poem for my mother, my anchor. The world is a complicated place. Flowers are simple and beautiful. poetryarchive.org/poem/poetry-...

"after scrubbing garden tiles helpers disrupt / hot sun servitude / sing gospel / dream parliaments of rakes and brooms on the bus stand a school girl bleeds / grips the blade in her pocket / she believes blisters by her own hands are better" mokomagazine.org/2025/11/11/k...

"Decolonization involves ensuring our children are raised on Caribbean literature..." - Marsha Massiah Enjoyed this interview with my hot mouth, dedicated and space-making friend. @sxsalon.bsky.social smallaxe.net/sxsalon/inte...

"As Danielle demanded for her home island-nation, she too should be called “beacon” and “flame” for us. She was for me. I am a richer writer for these brief interactions. Respè." @sxsalon.bsky.social smallaxe.net/sxsalon/poet...

Anson Gonzalez has done so much for poetry in Trinidad and Tobago and Caribbean literature as a whole. @magmapoetry.bsky.social This is for you Uncle Anson. Sleep well. magmapoetry.com/archive/magm...

LeBron James 👑 Remarkable 10pt streak. I hoped it went on forever. But, you are the boss of the court, made the game winning pass and will continue to define the sport in the years ahead.

🙏🏿🌺

"...because the fate of poetry is to fall in love with the world, in spite of History." - Derek Walcott

“They have a civilizing decency, like Botanical Gardens, as if the sky were a glass ceiling under which a colonized vegetation is arranged for quiet walks and carriage rides.” - Derek Walcott

"This is Port of Spain to me, a city ideal in its commercial and human proportions, where a citizen is a walker and not a pedestrian, and this is how Athens may have been before it became a cultural echo." - Derek Walcott

Travel well, Jimmy Cliff 🕊️ You changed our world 🌍 and the way we saw ourselves with your voice 🙏🏿🌺

“Decolonization involves ensuring our children are raised on Caribbean literature.” In this interview, @amilcarsanatan.bsky.social and Marsha Massiah discuss the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival, the diaspora, and hope. Read more on their conversation here: smallaxe.net/sxsalon/inte...

Thank you to the authors who contributed interviews and dialogues to this issue: Rachel Mordecai | Kelly Baker Josephs | @amilcarsanatan.bsky.social | Marsha Massiah | Shrinagar Francis | Fawzia Muradali Kane | @websdercorneille.bsky.social | @evanauguste.bsky.social

And our gratitude goes to the authors for sharing poetry and prose: @amilcarsanatan.bsky.social | @kgapoetwriter.bsky.social | Morgan Christie | John Robert Lee | @omegadenyse.bsky.social | Letitia Marie Pratt | Malica S. Willie | Conor Bracken | Keith Jones

“it is better to speak / remembering / we were never meant to survive." - Audre Lorde

La connaissance poétique naît du grand silence de la connaissance scientifique - Aimé Césaire (1944)