Tag Archives: Art

Culture, General T&T

The Passing of the Pointer Man

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
August 31, 2021

PART 3

“Pointerman/The crossroad is self…./ seek the source of rivers/ begin here, in your hands, begin/each beginning,/new beginnings/ like vertiginous sacraments of water/ begin at the navel’s resolve, new/ incarnate flower.”

—LeRoy Clarke, Douens: Poems and Drawings

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoePainting was LeRoy Clarke’s true forte, but he was equally adept at poetry. In Parables of Joyless Days, Clarke described himself as “The Poet Who Paints With Words.” In 1981, he shocked our sensibilities when he cried: “Carpenter, shoemaker, dancer, wirebender,/ let me be the Artist—Poet—Farmer./ I will fork this earth, with my tongue/ let me plunge into your ear/ through syllables of violet, the science of turquoise, / through populous ochres and energetic reds/ through fathomless greens, through supplicant blue, / through the arterial vegetation of the rainbow” (Douens).
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General T&T, International, Italy

The Monumentality of it All

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
September 14, 2016

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIt’s Sunday, September 4th. I am in Rome, Italy. The sun is ablaze but it is not a Trinidad hot sun. There is no breeze and the heat radiates from the earth, making you feel as if you are being roasted alive. I visit the Palazzo Barberini, the National Gallery of Ancient Art that was conceived to celebrate the artistic passion of Maffeo Barberini who became Pope Urban VIII in 1623. As a cardinal, he sponsored many artists with his patronage.
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