“Place Name: Oracabessa”
Kei Miller, 2014
Originally published in In Nearby Bushes
Editor’s Note: The poem in this chapter is considered a transformative fair use. Please see the annotations section in How to Use this Book for an explanation of the author’s pedagogy on creating conversation within a text.
Hashtag
#multilingual, #ways of knowing, #otherness, #poetry, #death, #audio, #experimental, #personal is political, #memory, #colonialism, #protest
Frame
DU: Jamaican writer Kei Miller (b. 1978) has received international recognition for his poetry, essay collections, short stories and his recent novel, Augustown (2016). This poem – and his work generally – may serve well for any lessons on postcolonial studies, multilingualism or the “politics of knowing.” Instructors will find generative points of comparison with other entries in this reader. His works explore the relationship between sound, power, otherness, and alternative epistemologies.
“Oracabessa” is part of a sequence of poems called “Place Names” from Miller’s The Cartographer Tries To Map a Way to Zion (2014). Generally, this collection narrates what happens when one system of knowledge or one way of seeing confronts another. The main sequence in this collection is a dialogue between a Western “cartographer” and a Jamaican rastaman. The cartographer purports to measure, map, categorize – and by implication, control and violate – places in the Caribbean while the rastaman counters by arguing for a different way of seeing and experiencing place or space. In a sort of symbolic reversal of the colonial experience, the cartographer eventually concedes to the rastaman’s arguments to experience place “from within,” without importing epistemological frameworks that are out of tune with the concreteness and particularities of any place that is newly encountered. The cartographer eventually learns that every place name is full of histories that require a more careful kind of listening for benign access and that “not every place that can be named can be found.” Miller asks the reader to pay attention to what stories are hidden in the naming of one place.
The “Place Name” poems like “Oracabessa” are interspersed throughout the dialogue of the rastaman and the cartographer. As Miller explains in the accompanying video, “good poetry always exposes the world as insufficiently defined … good poetry expands our way of knowing the world.” Each of these place name poems attempts to attune the reader to acknowledging that the “half has never been told” – a biblical phrase often invoked within rastafarian cultural production and popularized by Bob Marley – and that any one place is full of stories that would otherwise be lost if we insist on monoculturalism, monolingualism, and epistemological paradigms that pretend to be “universal.”
In an essay on power, sound, and publishing as a black Caribbean writer in the UK, Miller writes, “I live … in a deeply conflicted state, recognising that I have been able to flourish artistically within a system that was constructed to exclude me, and my body, and the sounds that come out of black mouths …. I try to write poems that gradually turn up the volume. I want to adjust my readers’ ears, slowly, slowly, to a world of sound and beauty that they had not been capable of hearing before.”[1] Writing political/protest poetry masked as lyricism (such as Miller’s poem “The Law Concerning Mermaids”), and raising questions about cultural conflict, naming, history, and the complexities of language and sound, Miller is a new, compelling voice in the long tradition of anti-colonial Caribbean literature.
Excerpts
See the International Writing Program’s video with Kei Miller contextualizing how he sees the relationship between poetry and politics. He then performs the poem. Instructors can show 7-10 minutes of it effectively, starting at the second part of the video. Miller reads or “remembers” the poem and performs the song towards the end of the video.
Miller’s poem “The Law Concerning Mermaids”
Oracabessa – origins disputed but most likely leave over[2]
from the Spanish. Oracabeza, Golden Head, though
what gold was here other than light shining off the bay,
other than bananas bursting out from red flowers[3]? But
this too is disputed – not the flowers – rather, the origin
of bananas; they may have come here with Columbus on
a ship that in 1502 slipped into Oracabessa the way grief
sometimes slips into a room[4]. In those days the sailor
tried to name the island Santa Maria, as if not knowing
we already had a name, in another language, a language
whose speakers would soon die – though this too is
disputed[5] – not the deaths, but the completeness of
genocide. Consider, if you will, such leave-over words as
barbecue; consider hurricane[6]; consider the word Jamaica,
land of wood and water – but not of gold. Could someone
please go back in time[7] and tell Columbus, in Taino there
is no word for gold. Christopher Columbus, in Italiano
Cristoforo Colombo, en español Cristóbal Colón. A teacher
once told me ‘Colón’ is root word for colonist, and though
I know that was false etymology[8], there is some truth to it.
Oracabessa – place where you might find such tranquil
villas as Golden Cove, Golden Clouds or Goldeneye –
longtime home of Ian Fleming[9] who sat there on cliff’s
edge, the morning’s breakfast brought to him by a woman
named Doris, the scent of ackee and crisp-fried
breadfruit wafting up to his nostrils while between his
teeth he bit a number 2 pencil, all the time looking out to
sea as if fishing for a story[10] – maybe a man – an incredible
man – let’s call him Bond. James Bond. Who knew 007
wasn’t Scottish, but a barefoot bwoy from St Mary, Jamaica.[11]
Like so many others, he too would migrate – the brutish
winter cooling his complexion down to white. Such stories!
Goldfinger, GoldenEye, The Man with the Golden Gun.
Did you never stop to wonder where all this gold came
from?[12] Did you never stop to ask, what was found in El
Dorado? Well, let me tell you: not a nugget, not an ounce
of ore – but light gilding the bay, and perhaps bananas, and
perhaps ackee, and such language[13] as could summon
wind to capsize Columbus’s ships[14] – and if that’s not gold,
then what is?
You may access the full text here on The Poetry Society.
Text Version
Wide Shots:
- Observe an object that’s currently around you. What larger or wider histories may this object contain?
- What are your first thoughts about the Caribbean? Of Jamaica? Can you complicate these stories you’ve inherited about the Caribbean? Where do you think you inherited them from?
- What do you know about the history of indigenous groups in the Caribbean? Miller mentions in the poem words that were inherited from the Arawak like “barbecue” and “hurricane.” What do you know of the “completeness of genocide” of Caribbean indigeneity?
Close Shots:
- What’s the relationship between “gold” and “language” in this poem? The poem ends with, “if that’s not gold, then what is”? How can language be material?
- How would you describe the tone of the poem? How is Miller using the lyric as a mask for protest?
- On two occasions, Miller interrupts the sentence with a supposition of what the reader is thinking: in lines 4-8 and again in lines 8-13. What does he assume the reader was thinking? What were you thinking before the “not” clause”? What idea does he plant in your mind with that “not” clause?
Mid Shots
- See “Insufficient Definitions” for a comparative reading of Robert Pinksy’s “The Shirt.”
Possible Transitions
ET: I would teach this poem alongside Audre Lorde’s “The Transformation of Silence into Action” to build on the politics of naming and whose voices speak. Another interesting connection would be with Madhu Kaza’s “Vão/Vòng A Conversation with Katrina Dodson” to underscore the fluidity of meaning as translated between languages.
JS: This poem dialogues with Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “Asters and Goldenrod” in compelling ways, both authors complicating colonial narratives and epistemologies to uncover other ways of knowing.
DU: A possible pairing would be this text with Li’s “To Speak is to Blunder.” Instructors may find it interesting to pair these two to deepen student’s appreciation of the (im)possibilities of representation.
- Miller, Kei. “the Fat Black Woman.” PN Review, vol. 44, no. 5, June 2018, https://www.pnreview.co.uk/cgi-bin/scribe?item_id=10209 ↵
- DU: Instructors may find it productive to share with students some of the history of "Jamaican Patois" in the context of British colonialism. ↵
- DU: What critique is here regarding nature and colonial violence? ↵
- DU: How do you make sense of the confluence of the personal and political here? ↵
- JS: what is the dispute here? the line says the deaths are incontrovertible, so what is debated in the phrase "completeness of genocide"? ↵
- DU: Why do you think the poet reminds the reader of the etymology of words like barbecue and hurricane? ↵
- DU: Note how temporality is an issue throughout the poem. ↵
- DU: What truths are buried in this false etymology? ↵
- DU: Why do you think Ian Flemming makes an appearance here? ↵
- JS: in what ways is this the action of "fishing for a story" the crux of the poem? does the poem participate in this activity? what's different about Fleming's fishing and the poem's? ↵
- DU: Ask students how they make sense of this line. ↵
- DU: How would you reformulate the buried truths behind this question? What would be a literal translation of this line? ↵
- DU: What is this "language"? ↵
- DU: How can this language "capsize Columbus' ships"? ↵
See:
“As a Child in Haiti, I Was Taught to Despise My Language and Myself”
“Gun Bubbles”
“How to Tame a Wild Tongue”
“Place Name: Oracabessa”
“Puerto Rican Obituary”
“Saving a Language You’re Learning to Speak”
“Three Ways to Speak English”
"To Speak is to Blunder"
“Vão/Vòng A Conversation with Katrina Dodson"
Against the Grain: Listening for Controversy (exploration)
Historical Contexts (exploration)
Parsing Themes (exploration)
Translations Across and Within Languages (exploration)
See:
"Asters and Goldenrod"
“Grammar, Identity, and the Dark Side of the Subjunctive”
“Place Name: Oracabessa”
“Vão/Vòng A Conversation with Katrina Dodson"
Against the Grain: Listening for Controversy (exploration)
Critical Learning Reflection (exploration)
Indigenous Perspectives of Western Science (exploration)
Insufficient Definitions (exploration)
The Point of Education? (exploration)
Poetry and Science: Epistemology through Language (exploration)
written or spoken form that typically uses metered language and structure to highlight sound and rhythm
See:
“The Contract Says: We’d Like the Conversation to be Bilingual”
“Place Name: Oracabessa”
“Puerto Rican Obituary”
“Three Ways to Speak English”
Insufficient Definitions (exploration)
Tracing Citations (exploration)
Translations Across and Within Languages (exploration)
recorded text delivered orally rather than in writing
See:
"Asters and Goldenrod"
“Grammar, Identity, and the Dark Side of the Subjunctive”
“Place Name: Oracabessa”
"Puerto Rican Obituary"
“Saving a Language You’re Learning to Speak”
“Three Ways to Speak English”
Dialogue Over Time: A New Boogaloo: “How Beautiful We Really Are” (exploration)
Historical Contexts (exploration)
Indigenous Perspectives of Western Science (exploration)
Music Trails (exploration)
Reading the “Fine Print” (exploration)
challenges conventions of language, genre, and structure in how the piece is written
See:
“How to Tame a Wild Tongue”
“Place Name: Oracabessa”
“Puerto Rican Obituary”
“Skin Feeling”
"To Speak is to Blunder"
Poetry and Science: Epistemology through Language (exploration)
See:
“The Contract Says: We’d Like the Conversation to be Bilingual”
“How to Tame a Wild Tongue”
“Place Name: Oracabessa”
“Puerto Rican Obituary”
“Saving a Language You’re Learning to Speak”
“Skin Feeling”
“Three Ways to Speak English”
"To Speak is to Blunder"
“The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action”
Body as Metaphoric Space (exploration)
Emotion in Language (exploration)
Historical Contexts (exploration)
Juxtapositions of Silence (exploration)
Self Reflection, Collective Change (exploration)
Transculturation, Language and South-South Migration (exploration)
See:
"Connecting the Dots"
“Place Name: Oracabessa”
“Skin Feeling”
"To Speak is to Blunder"
Historical Contexts (exploration)
Parsing Themes (exploration)
See:
“As a Child in Haiti, I Was Taught to Despise My Language and Myself”
"Connecting the Dots"
“Three Ways to Speak English”
“Place Name: Oracabessa”
Insufficient Definitions (exploration)
Dialogue Over Time: A New Boogaloo: “How Beautiful We Really Are” (exploration)
Historical Contexts (exploration)
See:
“As a Child in Haiti, I Was Taught to Despise My Language and Myself”
“The Contract Says: We’d Like the Conversation to be Bilingual”
“How to Tame a Wild Tongue”
“Place Name: Oracabessa”
“Puerto Rican Obituary”
“Three Ways to Speak English”
“The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action”
Dialogue Over Time: A New Boogaloo: “How Beautiful We Really Are” (exploration)