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Word rhythms: From the life of a woman
- GenresPoetry
Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
About the author
Elean Thomas
3 books1 followerThe writer and activist Elean Thomas once declared: "I can do nothing with life but live it. I do not like to be on the sidelines." Dynamic, vivacious, and a staunch socialist, she stayed committed, whether in her Jamaican homeland, in Czechoslovakia, where she was briefly based during the latter years of the cold war, or in Brixton, south London, following her marriage to the radical lawyer Lord Gifford.
Elean was born on September 18, 1947 in St Catherine, Jamaica, "the result of the union," she said, "between a quiet, dignified, brave working-class woman and a boppish, dashing middle-class preacherman". Her father, David Thomas, was a Pentecostal bishop; her mother was a health worker. Elean read politics and history at the University of the West Indies (UWI) in the late 1960s, and, two decades later, did postgraduate work in communications at Goldsmiths College, London.
After UWI, she worked as a reporter for the Jamaica Gleaner. With the election of Michael Manley's radical People's National party in 1972, she joined the Jamaica Information Service.
She served on the executive of the Press Association of Jamaica, and was a founder-member of the Workers party of Jamaica (WPJ), a Marxist grouping initiated by the respected academic Trevor Munroe, who regarded Elean as one of the outstanding figures of her generation. As WPJ international secretary, she sat on the editorial board of the Prague-based World Marxist Review. From communist Czechoslovakia, she travelled around Europe, and built strong connections in South Africa.
Back in Jamaica, she was pivotal in the campaign against the 1983 US invasion of Grenada. Indeed her first meeting with Gifford, in 1984, came after she had invited him to speak to a human rights committee she had set up following the invasion.
She began scribbling poetry, as she put it in a much later interview in the Guardian, in the early 1970s. Promoting women's equality was a mantle she felt she had inherited from inspiring figures like Nanny of the Maroons, a key figure in the anti-slavery struggle.
Her first poetry collection, World Rhythms From The Life Of A Woman (1986) was published by Karia Press. She preferred to call her work "word rhythms" rather than poetry, its dedication was to her mother, who "always tries her best/ Against all odds/ And who bequeaths me/ A heritage of dignity and struggle/ Against all odds.
In 1988, Karia published Elean's second collection, Before They Can Speak Of Flowers. The roll-call to which it was dedicated took in revolutionary reggae singers and musicians, the African National Congress, the Iraqi and Greek Communist parties, the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the sisters and brothers of Ladbroke Grove's Mangrove and Tottenham's Broadwater Farm.
In 1991, Elean's novel, The Last Room, won the Ruth Hadden prize for best first novel published in Britain. She also worked on An African Reggae Opera, a performance art composition of poetry, song, music, and the spoken word. Her work was anthologised in the collection Daughters of Africa by Margaret Busby. She contributed to Let It Be Told: Black Women Writers in Britain edited by Lauretta Ngcobo. Her marriage was dissolved in 1998. She died May 27, 2004 aged 56, survived by her adopted daughter.
From obituary by Buzz Johnson
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/...
Elean was born on September 18, 1947 in St Catherine, Jamaica, "the result of the union," she said, "between a quiet, dignified, brave working-class woman and a boppish, dashing middle-class preacherman". Her father, David Thomas, was a Pentecostal bishop; her mother was a health worker. Elean read politics and history at the University of the West Indies (UWI) in the late 1960s, and, two decades later, did postgraduate work in communications at Goldsmiths College, London.
After UWI, she worked as a reporter for the Jamaica Gleaner. With the election of Michael Manley's radical People's National party in 1972, she joined the Jamaica Information Service.
She served on the executive of the Press Association of Jamaica, and was a founder-member of the Workers party of Jamaica (WPJ), a Marxist grouping initiated by the respected academic Trevor Munroe, who regarded Elean as one of the outstanding figures of her generation. As WPJ international secretary, she sat on the editorial board of the Prague-based World Marxist Review. From communist Czechoslovakia, she travelled around Europe, and built strong connections in South Africa.
Back in Jamaica, she was pivotal in the campaign against the 1983 US invasion of Grenada. Indeed her first meeting with Gifford, in 1984, came after she had invited him to speak to a human rights committee she had set up following the invasion.
She began scribbling poetry, as she put it in a much later interview in the Guardian, in the early 1970s. Promoting women's equality was a mantle she felt she had inherited from inspiring figures like Nanny of the Maroons, a key figure in the anti-slavery struggle.
Her first poetry collection, World Rhythms From The Life Of A Woman (1986) was published by Karia Press. She preferred to call her work "word rhythms" rather than poetry, its dedication was to her mother, who "always tries her best/ Against all odds/ And who bequeaths me/ A heritage of dignity and struggle/ Against all odds.
In 1988, Karia published Elean's second collection, Before They Can Speak Of Flowers. The roll-call to which it was dedicated took in revolutionary reggae singers and musicians, the African National Congress, the Iraqi and Greek Communist parties, the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the sisters and brothers of Ladbroke Grove's Mangrove and Tottenham's Broadwater Farm.
In 1991, Elean's novel, The Last Room, won the Ruth Hadden prize for best first novel published in Britain. She also worked on An African Reggae Opera, a performance art composition of poetry, song, music, and the spoken word. Her work was anthologised in the collection Daughters of Africa by Margaret Busby. She contributed to Let It Be Told: Black Women Writers in Britain edited by Lauretta Ngcobo. Her marriage was dissolved in 1998. She died May 27, 2004 aged 56, survived by her adopted daughter.
From obituary by Buzz Johnson
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/...
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 12, 2024
Leading member and activist in the WPJ, as well as an exemplary poet. She probably added a dynamic of cultural sophistication to the WPJ. Without her, who knows just how much more wooden and stiff the ideology of this party would have been. Her voice championed Black women and saw women’s labour and creativity as the invisible, yet essential substratum of both Jamaican politics and quotidian life.
Displaying 1 of 1 review