Report #54

This week's poem, "On Amatique, Missing Dawn," comes from the time I was living in Chiapas, Mexico and traveling during a break from teaching for Semana Santa. We had spent a couple of days in Livingston, Guatemala, a rasta town with a large Garifuna population. The Garifuna people are a mix of Arawak and West African ancestors. After a wild visit (perhaps to be written about one of these days), we took the ferry across the Bahia de Amatique back to Puerto Barrios where we could catch a chicken bus back to Guatemala City. The poem takes place during this ride.

Since the poem is set in the Caribbean, I kept with the theme for this week's music: "Haitian Fight Song" from 1955's Charles Mingus Quintet Plus Max Roach. The album features Mingus on bass, Roach on drums (though not on this particular track, that's covered by Willie Jones), Eddie Bert on trombone, George Barrow on tenor sax, and Max Waldron on piano.

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Report #54