The two English students at Grenfell Campus, Memorial University, were among five presenters at a public discussion of significant literature from emerging countries during the college’s International Development Week held earlier in February.
Unfortunately, only the five presenters and the event’s organizer attended the session at the Corner Brook Public Library.
Tulk spoke about his interest in how the Caribbean canon seems to be influenced by the region’s history of British colonialism, yet distinctly stands on its own at the same time.
“Caribbean literature often has this voice of revolution and the need to rise up and relinquish oppressions,” said Tulk. “Things like the Atlantic slave trade and British colonialism haven’t really been mended and are brushed over by North American paradigms and capitalism and ambiguous topics like television and social constructs that don’t fit a Caribbean lifestyle.”
Furlotte’s focus was on dub poetry, an oral storytelling performance that combines verse with music. She has studied Canadian dub poets like Lillian Allen, who has won a Juno award, and d’bi Young Anitafrika, a dub performer who was in Corner Brook recently for two public performances and a series of workshops at Grenfell.
“I talked about what (Young) thinks makes up dub poetry, which is the importance of performance, orality, political content and the language of Jamaica,” said Furlotte. “Dub poetry is by the Jamaican working class, for the Jamaican working class, to inspire revolution and social change.”
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