Connect with us

Create

Poetry in motion: Bob Devin Jones meets Aimé Césaire

Bill DeYoung

Published

on

A post-rehearsal portrait, Tuesday at thestudio@620: From left Edward Leonard, Carlos del Orbe, Bob Devin Jones, Kingslay Solomon, Joe Porter and Leotte Harrell. Photos by Bill DeYoung.

Bob Devin Jones, writer, actor and prolific theater-maker, hit a rough patch following his recovery from Covid-19 in 2020. It wasn’t exactly writer’s block, but something, he felt, was off.

Aimé Césaire

Jones got his groove back by delving into the collective works of Martinique-born poet, artist and politician activist Aimé Césaire (1913-2008). “I have a friend from Haiti,” Jones said, “and she said Aimé Césaire was their Shakespeare. He’s that well-regarded.”

The Dali Museum enlisted Jones to co-curate the exhibit Aimé Césaire: Poetry, Surrealism and Négritude, and commissioned him to write a performance piece based on his impressions of Césaire’s writings.

The result, “Until the River Never Grieves,” includes three actors and three musicians. It will debut Oct. 11 at the Dali, and continue on the 13th and 14th at thestudio@620, the performance space Jones executive-directs.

It is a series of observations, through the words of both Césaire and Jones, on the historical African experience, through the lens of a word coined by the French: Négritude. Co-founded by Césaire, the Négritude movement drew on surrealism in developing an anti-colonialist awareness of Black culture.

“I was inspired not to write about him, but what his words invoke in me,” Jones explained.

“He embraced surrealism. So like a lot of times, subject and verb don’t agree. The title of the poem, though, gives you an indication of what he was ruminating about. And what I love about his poems is that they often fly over a very discordant landscape.

“And then in the last line, or the penultimate line, he just brings it all together. Which is an experience. Not ‘this means this,’ or ‘this is a verb’ or ‘this is a noun,’ it’s all at one and at the same time.”

In Plato’s poem Allegory of the Cave, he added, “you’re supposed to get more knowledge, more light, as you crawl out of the cave. But sometimes with Aimé, it’s more light, more life, more abundant, and so you can’t always just pigeonhole it.”

At the beginning of “Until the River Never Grieves,” Jones wrote:

The poet masters the inscrutable nuance of language

One word at a time

In a Promethean effort to illuminate the evidence of things not yet tasted

The poet uses the grace of his wit

With the unrelenting clarity of a shimmering steel scalpel

And later …

The hurt dirt of Africa holds the memory and the bones of all humankind

This archaeology is heady work if you can get it

He, Aime, got it

Like a bent calypso’d clock torqued in the middle

Beseeching the heavens to embrace the shadow

The darker brother

and shadow the embrace

“The original piece I was going to write was going to be incendiary,’ Jones explained. “You know, ‘say it loud, I’m negritude and I’m proud.’ And it didn’t happen that way for me. It’s a quiet affirmation of what my 67 years on the planet have taught me.”

Leotte Harrell sings while Carlos del Orbe narrates.

At a Tuesday evening rehearsal inside thestudio@620, Jones and his cast worked through “Until the River Never Grieves,” getting the work, in the parlance of theater people, on its feet. Kingslay Solomon, Edward Leonard and Carlos del Orbe are cast as “Aimé Nos. 1, 2 and 3.”

All I ask, Jones told his performers, “is that you give one hundred percent. So that way, anything you do will be capital. And that’s all I want.”

Edward Leonard, left, and Kingslay Solomon.

He stressed the strength of language, and talked about the rhythm of words, and the power of deliberate delivery.

“Sound vox has power in and of itself,” he said. “Martin Luther King preached his own eulogy the night before he was assassinated. Not many of us get to do that, because we don’t know the day or the hour. So when you do give words vox, they have power.

“And Aimé’s power on me is so persuasive that it got me writing again.”

“Until the River Never Grieves” at the Dali Museum

“Until the River Never Grieves” at thestudio@620

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

By posting a comment, I have read, understand and agree to the Posting Guidelines.

The St. Pete Catalyst

The Catalyst honors its name by aggregating & curating the sparks that propel the St Pete engine.  It is a modern news platform, powered by community sourced content and augmented with directed coverage.  Bring your news, your perspective and your spark to the St Pete Catalyst and take your seat at the table.

Email us: spark@stpetecatalyst.com

Subscribe for Free

Share with friend

Enter the details of the person you want to share this article with.