"Limestone" is the epic poem of Barbados (porous limestone island), and a major achievement in the development of an indigenous Caribbean poetics. Drawing on the Barbadian folk music of Tuk, Anthony Kellman invents his own form of Tuk verse to write the story of his island from the destruction of the Amerindians to the present day. In part one, the verse is based on the three-line tercet form of the early Tuk song. This section uses both invented characters and actual historical persons such as Bussa and Nanny Grigg, the leaders of the 1816 slave revolt, to explore the epic of loss, survival and reinvention in the lives of the African slaves. The verse form of part two is based on the vocal melodies of the contemporary Tuk song, rhymed couplets in tetrameters with occasional improvised or 'picong' breaks. This section is set in the post-emancipation period up to 1987 when Barbados had reached twenty-one years of independence.
Through the voices of those who lead the struggle against colonialism - Samuel Jackman Prescod, Charles O'Neal, Clement Payne, Grantley Adams and Errol Barrow - Kellman explores in a series of dramatic monologues the inner anguish of these popular leaders over the slow pace of advance and the inevitable compromises with external power. And as the society becomes increasingly polarized in terms of class and wealth, and the queues of would-be emigrants at the American consulate lengthen, the island, always the central character of the epic, asks: when a White business class still dominates the economy, who has benefited from the people's struggles of the past? What has been the fate of the 'children' of Bussa and Nanny Grigg? The verse form in part three is based on the rhythmic patterns of the seminal instrument in Tuk music, the snare drum. This section is set at the end of the twentieth century and tells the stories of Livingston, a young musician, and Levinia, an Indian-African Barbadian schoolteacher who has migrated to Georgia, USA.
Their stories explore the complex relationship of contemporary Barbadians to their homeland: deep attachment and an equal frustration over the absence of opportunities. Though Livingston and Levinia meet only in the most fleeting way, their lives intertwine in signifying that the island and its people still nurture within them the dreams of freedom and self-fulfilment. "Limestone" has a truly epic sweep. It narrates countless stories and creates many different voices to construct a vision of Barbados that encompasses suffering and achievement, heroic struggle and the setbacks of born of self-interest and timorous compromise. Like the great epics of Homer and Virgil it connects images of the past to contemporary dilemmas. Above all, "Limestone" is never other than a poem: a vast treasure house of images, sounds and rhythms that move, entertain and absorb the reader in its world.
