Donning dreadlocks and a rustic and arty look, poet and playwright, Kendel Hippolyte, is the very personification of an artist. Unsurprisingly, he is one of St. Lucia’s most recognizable cultural icons, and as the closest to Walcott in terms of recognition, stature, and artistic discipline (Walcott was also a poet and playwright), he can be regarded as the crown prince of St. Lucian art and culture. Kendel Hippolyte was once described as “perhaps the outstanding Caribbean poet of his generation.” Besides being honored with the St. Lucia Gold Medal of Merit for his contribution to the arts, he joins Derek Walcott, Vladimir Lucien, and Canisia Lubrin as one of only four St. Lucians to win an OCM Bocas Prize, the English-speaking Caribbean’s most prestigious literary award. Note, however, Hippolyte won the poetry prize, while the other three won both the poetry and overall prize.
Kendel Hippolyte has another thing in common with the literature Nobel Laureate. As with Sir Derek Walcott and Sir Arthur Lewis, this month is his birthday. But it isn’t any ordinary birthday. Today, January 9, 2022, the poet turned three-score and ten. Perhaps to help commemorate the momentous occasion, this year he was chosen to present the Derek Walcott Nobel Lecture, arguably the highlight of the Nobel Laureate Festival held each year in January to celebrate the island’s two Nobel Laureates.
Poet, journalist, and librarian, John Robert Lee, a good friend of Kendel Hippolyte and a cultural icon in his own rights, has also contributed to the celebration of his fellow word warrior’s birthday. Below, he dedicates three poems–A City Affair, Sabbathing Wednesday, and Chant down Babylon–to Kendel for his 70th birthday.
A City Affair (For the St. Lucian poets)
“Don’t you know I love you but am hopeless
at fixing the rain?” – Derek Walcott
We meet on the bus stand
our affair hidden in shouldering crowds –
another Wednesday, memory scouting through old Castries
retrieving lost facades, missing bars, gone tailor shops,
among sidewalk bazaars,
Syrian emporia, pastel food huts
and aloof desmoiselles.
Full disclosure –
no affair, just an aging poet’s fantasy
of a shapely muse from Marc or Millet
gentle spirit dissing corny flirtations
with watchful eyes and dimpled chin.
I guess our island cities age with us –
too-familiar corners turn weary with worn paint
houses that once welcomed you lean into broken steps
grime has grown dirty grey at the head of certain streets
we have become old strangers with the stranded shoemaker
near Victoria and Chisel.
Alert for bag snatchers and stray bullets,
pressing against all that life
in the anonymous teeming of this culture ̶
what do we love, if we love, and how doubt that we love?
:brash illiterate glamour, gossip of salons and parlours,
incomprehensible jabber of Jamaican Gaza from young pirates’ trays,
70’s chic thickened into retirement and resignation;
those around the park who recall
what we have forgotten about ourselves –
how doubt that we love the faithful harbour
closing in twilight after the cruisers,
soft-candle light settling from Mount Pleasant to Morne du Don to Morne
Fortune,
sudden scattering of fine drizzle,
remembrances of yards, rooms, first loves
and evenings coming down to town –
And I see I have gone to fictions of memory
asking of love now
as a man searches the warm ashes of a long marriage
to find again, if he can, the first coal,
glowing infatuation,
and under inquisition to seek out
what do we love, if we love and how doubt that we love?
On quiet Wednesdays, in lanes and streets of old Castries
passing through bus stands
looking, I suppose, some epiphany –
I imagine apocalypse
the last muted trumpet coming up
under that strange harmony of voices, sound-systems, traffic.
And O, I fear, I yearn, I hope,
for these I do love,
how doubt that I love,
beyond my heart’s flooding boulevard ̶
for these
I plead, I pray O Christ
Your enrapturing Grace.
Sabbathing Wednesday
(for KH)
Yes, I would Sabbath Wednesday
proclaim procession through old parts of town
place shrines of palm booths under verandahs’ ancient fretwork
and players of instruments at random corners;
mid-morning, mid-morning, a gentle air abroad,
benevolence at shop-fronts and half-opened jalousies,
angels ascending from Mary Ann to Broglie to Coral Street.
Yes, Wednesday for Sabbath,
resting centre of the week
pivot of our circling, cycling, repetitious livings;
but along the first sidewalks we skipped,
near those same zinc gates to alleys, yards and wooden steps
we recollect,
window ledges from which such courtesies and wisdom flowed –
to these our pilgrim feet should wander
with music up the road
away from downtown frenzy, frenetic sirens, hustlers,
on mid-morning Wednesdays,
Sabbathing.
Chant down Babylon
The dread-locked prophet comes every day to his box under the flamboyant
tree
in the square by government house, facing the cathedral,
with people passing through to taxi stand & restaurants,
& every day mockers give him talk when he chant down the system,
chant down Babylon, bloodfire scandals,
point with his shaking finger at the pride & selfishness
of the busy metropolis; & he chant down
meaningless religion, church & state complicity,
idols of liturgical masquerade, big pomposity,
what god they know? & he chant down
the unspeakable corruption that everybody know about,
that everybody doing, rich & poor, that he cannot even mention in public;
& prophet chant down the oppresson of poor like him,
no job, food scarce, shack leaking in rain, boss man wicked, virus in the air,
sick can’t buy medicine, children don’t have computer, politician door close;
& he raise his mouth against political camps & their barons,
if you don’t vote for them, krapo smoke your pipe, you suck salt,
even your family don’t know you;
when he look, he see the good book true,
lust for dollar & cents is root of all evil, all crime in the city,
everybody have a price, everything have a cost,
when you poor you like dog! This Babylon! This slave colony of Babylon!
& he come out against racism in Amerikkka, classism in his own island,
against hatred for people who different/
& the prophet start to bawl when he see what they doing
with their garbage, to the fish with their plastic,
how they cut down trees to build hotel & warehouse
& more golf course. & prophet chant & he chant & he chant
all the way to his little place outside the town.
Photo of Kendel Hippolyte, courtesy of McDonald Dixon. Photo of Robert Lee, courtesy of Marion Nelson and Allen Sherman. All other photos © John Robert Lee. Some of these poems have appeared in Collected Poems 1975-2015 (2017), published by Peepal Tree Press. Chant down Babylon is presently unpublished.
About John Robert Lee
John Robert Lee is a Saint Lucian poet, journalist, and librarian. He reviews literature and theatre for local, regional and international print and on-line journals. His poetry and short stories have been widely anthologised. His two latest collection of poems, Collected Poems, 1975–2015 (2017), and Pierrot (2020) were published by Peepal Tree Press. Other publications include Saint Lucian Writers and writing: an author index of published works (Papillote Press 2019); and Saint Lucian Literature and Theatre: an Anthology of Reviews (compiled and edited with Kendel Hipolyte, CDF 2006). A graduate of the University of the West Indies, Lee has taught literature, creative writing and library science for many years. He has also worked as a journalist in newspapers, radio and television. He lives in Saint Lucia.
Other Recent Works by John Robert Lee
Robert Lee on Revitalizing and Upgrading St. Lucia’s Cultural Institutions and Programs
January 6th – Epiphany
from Office Hours (for Charles Cadet 1924-2021)
Come Celebrate with Us our Nobel Laureates
2022 Nobel Laureate Festival Program
