Art visual np2

Photo by Andre Bagoo Nicholas Laughlin is known as the editor of several important publications, including the Caribbean Review of Books . But quietly, he has been amassing a strong body of poetry, published in journals throughout the world. "I also write poems," Laughlin notes on his website . "I’m slightly shy about this, and if asked am likely to change the subject, but some of my poems have been published in magazines in the Caribbean and elsewhere." PLEASURE takes a brief look at one of his recently published works, an extract from a sequence called Small Husband (the title of which is a reference to a kind of recurring avatar figure; a mythical creature that appears in different guises in Laughlin's work — sometimes a little king, sometimes the poet John Keats). The sequence amounts to something of a deeply personal meditation of a persona who may or may not be the poet or may, in fact, be all of us. Tellingly, the "small husband" is mercurial...

Detail from an untitled drawing by Christopher Cozier (2002), reproduced on the cover of the August 2004  CRB ;  courtesy the artist. At long last the trail-blazing online version of the Caribbean Review of Book s is on stream! Editor Nicholas Laughlin promises to bring more frequent installments of the journal than ever before. This is a very, very pleasing development. "If the original Caribbean Review of Books — published from 1991 to 1994 in Jamaica — was CRB version 1.0, and the CRB as revived in 2004 in Trinidad was version 2.0, then perhaps this incarnation of the magazine before you now, dear reader, might be called version 2.5," Laughlin writes on the new CRB site. "Because our new website, launched in time for our sixth anniversary, marks a shift in medium, but not in purpose, direction, or ambition. As in the twenty-one print editions we published between May 2004 and May 2009, the CRB will continue to provide serious (but not solemn) coverage of conte...

The Dream of a Thousand Shipwrecks #33 of 144 (2009) , by Patricia Kaersenhout The latest issue of the literary/visual arts journal Town , featuring Mahadai Das, Patricia Kaersenhout, Dhiradj Ramsamoedj and  Marcel Pinas, is now out. FIND  it here .

Detail of artist Ravi Rajcoomar's installation for the Paramaribo SPAN exhibition; Paramaribo, Suriname. Photos courtesy Nicholas Laughlin. An important exhibition of contemporary art, curated by Trinidadian artist Christopher Cozier, this week opens in Paramaribo, S uriname. The exhibition, which ARTSPUB blogger Richard Rawlins has described as " a bubbling, energetic, dynamic"  runs from February 26 to March 14 and serves as a platform for young artists. It is part of a larger conversation about contemporary art and visual culture in Suriname, which has, of course resonance for the wider Caribbean given our similar histories. According to the SPAN blog, " The project has three separate but interconnected platforms: an exhibition, which will open in Paramaribo in February 2010; a book to be published in three editions (Dutch, English, Portuguese); and a blog, which is at once a journal, an archive, and an independent creative undertaking. The project is, in part, a...

Mercy on my small husband. When he sleeps bare five hours a night wrapped in paper like an accident, like an insect itching serifs inside an envelope. He sleeps knowing I am nowhere near. He sleeps near I know not where. My small husband is an impossible sleeper...        --from ' Mercy on My Small Husband ' by Nicholas Laughlin READ more poetry from editor Nicholas Laughlin, Jim Goar and more, as well as a review of Vahni Capildeo's Undraining Sea  at the latest issue of the online journal Blackbox Manifold here . Photo by Andre Bagoo.

WHO? Who inspired me? When you are young you do not think about who inspired you; you are just busy doing. After a while you understand you did not do it alone. I stumbled into dance. But my mother, Florence Williams (deceased) and Noble Douglas have always been there. WHAT? I am trying to figure out what the ass it is I am doing - still. WHEN + WHERE? I have a piece I have started working on and I have one performance in the US early next year and hopefully one in Cuba around the same time. Working on an opening performance for the Youth Forum of the CHOGM (Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting). WHY? Trying to figure it out - still. PLEASE SAY SOMETHING DEEP (ABOUT ART): I was in a mad meeting yesterday and wasn't the least bit excited about any of it. Just then I wrote in my blank notepaper, "Art is presenting the familiar in an unfamiliar way or vice versa ". This was in stark contradiction to the brilliant ideas that were being presented. ASK AND ANSWER THE QUEST...

  Pat Chu Foon's iconic sculpture 'Spirit of Hope' has been painted over, as seen in this photo taken by Nicholas Laughlin. The sculpture, located at the intersection of Tragarete Road, Dundonald and Richmond Streets, has been partially coated over in what Laughlin describes as a "new coat of hospital-wall green".  "It tells me how unaware we are, as citizens, of the civic spaces we live and work in, and how irresponsibly we behave towards them. It tells me how little respect we have for the work of our artists and thinkers, and how eagerly the powers-that-be package that work in more palatable forms. It tells me we're far too fond of quick, superficial solutions to our problems," Laughlin writes on his blog which broke the news earlier today.   It is bad enough that the sculpture has been painted over, but worse that whoever did this did not even finish the job. The defaced piece is left wallowing in the ignominy of its own bizarre mutation.  The ...

Photo by Eric Rose from the literary website tongues of the ocean Today is officially National Poetry Day in Trinidad and Tobago, and to celebrate, the Writers Union is holding a bash at NALIS on Abercromby Street, Port-of-Spain. All we have to say is the invitation conspicuously notes, "REFRESHMENTS WILL BE SERVED". Things start at 7pm, but you know how poets like to be fashionably late. There's supposed to be a feature address by Chalkdust (Hollis Liverpool), and performances by Willi Chen and Brother Resistance--all under the watchful eye of Paul Keens-Douglas. Anyhow, some of the finest poets of this country are featured in the ever expanding online Bahamian literary journal tongues of the ocean. Check it out here . Particular favorites include Trinidadian editor Nicholas Laughlin's ' Here is the poem '.