He is also the editor of the first full-length U.S anthology of English-language Caribbean poetry Crossing Water: Contemporary Poetry of the English-Speaking Caribbean (1992) and is the originator of the Barbados poetic form Tuk Verse.Īs a musician, he played and sung pop and West Indian folk songs on England's folk-club circuit in his late teens before returning to Barbados to resume academic studies. His poems, stories, and essays have appeared in literary periodicals in the USA, the Caribbean, Canada, England, Wales, India, Venezuela, Cuba, and Brazil. He's a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts poetry fellowship (USA) and The Prime Minister's award (Barbados). He is also the author of two novels, The Coral Rooms and The Houses of Alphonso and four CDs of original music two of which are companions to his books Wings of a Stranger and Limestone. He is the author of five books of poetry, Watercourse, The Long Gap, Wings of a Stranger, Limestone (the first published epic poem from the island of Barbados), and South Eastern Stages. He currently teaches at Augusta College, Georgia.ĪNTHONY KELLMAN is a writer and musician, and Emeritus Professor of English & Creative Writing at Augusta University. In what follows Kellman combines a poetic and imaginative exploration of Alphonso's personal journey into his past, with an acute engagement with racial and political issues as he rediscovers his country in the midst of turmoil as the old order is challenged. There is also the family house, locked up and at risk of being vandalised and Alphonso finally recognises that he cannot put off making a return, the first since his departure.
It is the place that still feeds his imagination, but as a boy from a Black working class family he has felt excluded from the class structures of a country still dominated by a privileged White minority. All is complicated by his mixed feelings for his homeland. There is the love, shame and guilt he feels for the dead parents whose funerals he failed to attend, and there is the mystery of the brother he has never seen, hidden away in an institution. Only then is Alphonso forced into confronting the ghosts that propel his perpetual migrancy.
But this time she has had enough of his 'sorry restlessness', refuses to move with him and threatens the end of their marriage.
He has refused to share with her any real explanation for the complex feelings that drive him. He has dragged his long-suffering American wife, Simone, and their children from house to rented house. Barbadian-born Alphonso Hutson has lived in the USA for nearly sixteen years.
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