THE close of the second conference on Caribbean culture at the University of the West Indies Mona Campus last week was dominated by its guest of honour — Caribbean writer and historian Kamau Brathwaite — who delivered a mesmerising speech intercut with readings from his own poems.

As Brathwaite — tall, gangly and wearing a tam; looking like an intellectual, older version of Bob Marley — took to the stage, he indicated the two empty chairs beside him represented the spirits of “the ancestors” — key elements in a person’s identity in African tradition — who must be remembered.

And reminding the audience of the history of the land where they stood — a former slave plantation — he said that “the spirits of these slaves have never been appeased, never had a ceremony dealing with their torture and the redemption of their souls”. His performance, he said, would try to redress that wrong. He placed another stool right at the front of the stage — again for the ancestors — who he said he felt were “very close tonight”.

Echoing the words of the opening speaker of the night, Jamaican folklorist Joan Andrea Hutchinson, who said the conference showed “how nuff and boasify we feel about our culture”, Brathwaite praised the success of the conference, adding that it should become an annual event.

At the same time, Brathwaite called on the audience to imagine themselves under a baobab tree in Africa, saying the conference was like an African “shada” or shout out — a combination of speech, poetry and naming. He said such events were vital to the formation of Black Caribbean identity as “people coming out of a holocaust have not for a long time tried to find their own words for their own experience and naming is the key to loving and possession”.

He reminded those in attendance that one of the first things the enslaved were deprived of were their names and languages and said that recovering these was key to recovering the identity which had been stolen. This was why, he said, he had changed his name from “Lawson Edward” to the more African “Kamau”. Brathwaite has long referred to his seven-year stay in Ghana as a young man, where he says he “reclaimed” his African identity and language, as “the beginning of my life”. And, although born in Barbados and educated in England, Brathwaite has frequently been described as “the poet of total African consciousness”.

Nonetheless, Brathwaite’s work has primarily been concerned with an exploration of Caribbean identity and his most famous works The Arrivants: A New World Trilogy, Middle Passages and Trench Town Rock are all in this vein.

After leaving Ghana Brathwaite spent 28 years as a professor of literature at UWI’s Mona Campus before taking up his present position as professor of comparative literature at New York University. Returning to the institution where he said he had spent “ten thousand nine hundred days of my life”, he praised the changes that had taken place saying “it is vital that corridors are opened up between Power and the Powerless”. He contrasted the welcome he had received from the present vice chancellor, Professor Rex Nettleford, with the “less than 10 minutes” he had been given by his predecessors.

UWI graduate student and Rhodes scholar, Nadia Ellis Russell, who had introduced Brathwaite, said that the “difficulty of his work is important”. And indeed Brathwaite’s work is not easy to grasp so some sections of his poems and performance went over the audience’s head. Nevertheless, he along with fellow performers at the closing ceremony — singer Pam Hall, jazz duo Dean Fraser and Seretse Small, the energetic A Y Crew — certainly gave a night to remember.

Rightfully, Brathwaite applauded the other performers at the ceremony — the West African-style Akwaaba drummers and the University of the West Indies Dance troupe. Brathwaite called the drummers — whose beats punctuated his performance — “the happiest and most energetic drummers in the world” — adding that the Jamaican group were “absolutely world class”.

The drummers were undoubtedly crucial to the success of this conference — not only linking all the speeches and performances of the nightly “Festival of the Word” but underlining its central “message” of the continuity of African and Caribbean culture. The only pity, as far as the audience was concerned, was that they were not able to dance to the drummers who certainly had them all tapping their feet.

Another success was the University of the West Indies dance troupe, choreographed by L’Antoinette Stines, who performed a variety of spectacles incorporating Brathwaite’s poetry and African movements and rhythms which he said he found “astonishing”. Brathwaite also praised “the artist” responsible for the decoration of the University’s Undercroft where the festival took place — a striking series of painted banners incorporating African and English words from his poetry which was unusual yet highly appropriate.

Finally, the conference ended, as it began, with the hypnotic beats of the Akwaaba drummers. “Akwaaba” — which means “welcome” in the Akaan language of West Africa from where many Caribbean slaves were taken — also became “farewell”.