The Anuki Country Press

Too much sugar and alcohol

2012-02-16T10:18:00.000+10:00

Talk about having “the poetic licence to write”.

For writers that slogan can lead to a lot of trouble in a lifetime.

Those troubles begin with success stories and develop into creating new rules and laws for oneself and then, on the pretext of avoiding the paparazzi, succumbing finally to the dismal after effects of severe self-imposed seclusion or exile if not self-inflicted pangs of sugar and alcohol.

Sounds terrible, doesn’t it? But that is precisely what every aspiring writer wants to become, eventually.

Give a Papua New Guinea writer a million US dollars in prize money and what do we have? A very lonely individual who’s escaped God knows what in his home country and he’s in Europe or South America somewhere having forgotten all about his tribes and clans and relatives.

Turn the coin and you are looking at the life of a celebrity in a larger culture like the US, for example. Notice how striking the similarities are. The equation remains as simple as can be: first, the desire to write; second, the will to become famous, rich and secure; and finally, the inevitable downhill regress.

Question to ask now is: “Is Papua New Guinea really free of these pitfalls that come to us from other cultures?” Thank God not one single Papua New Guinean writer has become a millionaire yet. If that happened our entire perspective of the world outside would be different.

But going through that mathematical equation again points to certain factors that we must be aware of as writers.

First, there is the general rule of having “the poetic licence to write.” This means, simply, that we can break as many rules as we like in order to write, publish and become rich and famous. We cannot do so by following each rule in writing step by step. That can prove time-consuming for some.

But the enormous pitfall to this rushes up suddenly to meet us the moment we start breaking rules. In poetry, for example, we see this uncanny habit as not sticking to the rules of rhyme, rhythm and precision. Each line of poetry ought to be carefully planned and executed so that you could put those same words into song and sing them quite easily. Breaking rules denotes writing what is regarded as “free verse” or “free style.” Alleluia, that’s where some of the troubles begin. And off we go, breaking as many rules as we can, and who cares what professor so and so in English says about grammar. The important thing is that we see our names in print, we become well known, and of course we have a fat bank account. Alleluia again, because we give ourselves that “poetic licence” to do so.

The pitfall to this is the amount of material reward we get.

And the worst consequence of it all is when we break rules in order to create new ones for ourselves. We become the master of our own craft. And we can remain on top of the world for as long as we take great care of ourselves physically. Creating own rules denotes inventing new ethics and morals and a writer has the talent and ability to do that. What the society does is willingly or otherwise follow the whims of that writer.

And then we look at the second facet of this idea of breaking rules and creating new ones. Here, we look closely at what fame and fortune can do to us. The more followers we have the more money there is added as profit to our sense of creativity. So we celebrate. And in the process of celebrating we wake up one morning to discover that we have consumed too much. Too much sugar and alcohol? Exactly our point here.

The third and final facet of all this is the decline to nonentity and total oblivion. If we have not been careful with our lives, our talents and successes, our wealth and moment of fame, then the fall from grace becomes inevitable. Self-doubt, lack of acknowledgement, belief and trust in a deity of individual choice that redeems, forgives and saves – these become the order of our day.

Storyboard sometimes feels saddened by events that surround this last point. We can, as writers, become so famous and rich that nothing else besides may matter. We may command others to do things to our bidding. And when we do someone a bad turn there is no need to apologize. We make ourselves become invincible that way. And invincible things often turn out to be self-destructive; so much so there is no turning back. He who pays calls the tune, goes the old proverb. So we call the tune, we party, we drink and make ourselves merry. Too much sugar and alcohol, eh? We succumb to our own downfall at will.

There is, however, a way out of this. And that is when we regard our own moments of creativity seriously. All our sense of creativity is awe-inspired, and it comes not from within but from outside. We are no longer the custodians of our own creativity. We become vessels through which some external power needs to express itself. And if we take all our writing as such in totality then it is true we are safe.

A writer in society is like a captain of a sailing vessel. He must consciously be aware of how to sail that ship despite rough waters. Last week we read about the plight of those on mv Rabaul Queen. Storyboard could not help associating that experience with his own life, which had been unsparingly cruel and punishing, along with the quieter, calmer experiences of those Anglicans of long ago who sailed these same waters where the disaster struck.

Bishop David Hand, in his autobiography, Modawa, wrote about his own experience on this particular stretch of water.

“...in my trawler St Lawrence, which Bishop Strong had spared for me through the Papuan mission, we took two days and two nights to do the normally 13-hour run from Arawe to Dregerhafen in March in a mountainous sea with visibility nil. Everybody aboard was flat out except my magnificent and dependable Stan Wesley, our skipper, who held the wheel himself for almost all the way. As we cruised into the calm water of Dreger Harbour I said, “God bless you, Stan. Were you frightened?” And he said, “No, Father Bishop. I had committed the boat into the hands of God and his holy angels, so I knew all would be well.”

The southerly drift of the Solomon Sea rebounds from East Cape and the Rabaraba/Cape Vogel Basin causing a formidable apex just off the coast of northern Momase. One has to read the anger of the waves with humility there in order to surf through. Bishop David’s skipper was from the Wereura Rabaraba area where the sea is quite often deep blue and serene looking, but perilously vicious in February and March.

Some of the beautiful things

2012-01-13T14:17:00.000+10:00

A couple at the Waigani campus reading Dinaw Mengestu's novel, "The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears".

“Some of the beautiful things that heaven bears, where we came forth, and once more saw the stars.”

Those lines come from Dante’s Inferno. A part of those the Ethiopian writer, Dinaw Mengestu, uses to compose a beautiful novel there is about forced migrations of a group or groups of humanity from one end of the globe to the other. “The beautiful things that heaven bears” therefore becomes the title of that novel.

It is a good novel in that it far surpasses the sentiments of Diaspora in third world literature, albeit post and neo-colonial literature. The setting then becomes the force of reckoning in modern day fiction of any genre, any class or description. Washington, DC, then, of all places, becomes the setting of this novel. And it is well that it should be, for out of such experiences one never knows, the next president of the United States could be a Papua New Guinean.

Three Africans, forced out of their respective countries through revolutions and dictatorships, find themselves in Washington, DC, trying to make do with whatever it is that is left of their lives. Yet each day to them is like a journey undertaken by the persona in Dante’s classic, Inferno – which is tantamount to saying, yeah, I been there, but look again in the other direction and tell me what you see.

Of course, the allusion there should not imply that America is such a beautiful place to be. As one of the characters of the novel says, “This country is like a little bastard child. You can’t be angry when it doesn’t give you what you want.” Thenceforth, their new country is viewed as a place of choicelessness where “you have to praise it when it comes close, otherwise it’ll turn around and bite you in the ass.”

So the three Africans, Kenneth the Kenyan, Sepha Stephanos the Ethiopian (and the protagonist/narrator of the novel) and Joseph or Joe the Congo, set about rebuilding their lives as “children of the revolution” involuntarily marooned in America. They have to make America their home and that is what they all set out to do.

Kenneth becomes a successful used car dealer, Joe the Congo retains his old job as a waiter at a posh hotel spot where he is audience to the inner workings of government through several state dinners or lunches followed by leftover meals and drinks to take home at the end of day, and Sepha Stephanos decides to set up a grocery store at a convenient central spot known as General Logan’s Circle. It is at this grocery shop that the three meet some evenings to share nostalgic sentiments about their sad continent, strewn with decades of sporadic dictatorship regimes that seem endless and chaotic.

Life goes on as most good novels can allow, the narrative becoming all the more grandeur in description and sentiment until what we a looking at is a masterpiece so well planned and executed. Not only is Dante mentioned in this novel but other names as well such as Dostoyevsky, Emerson, Tocqueville and Dickinson.

In addition to these three Africans there are characters such as Judith and her biracial daughter Naomi who move in to Stephanos’ neighbourhood to claim a rundown mansion and turn into a Great Gatsby looking castle. It is Judith and her daughter Naomi who bring a lot of changes to an otherwise dismal middle-aged life of Stephanos. A kind of relationship develops there and for a moment we tend to see some promises of enlightenment, intellectual or otherwise, for all parties concerned. But it is a good kind of relationship eventually. Stephanos in teaching Naomi to read books, for example, surprises himself in getting into the inner psychology of The Brothers Karamazov deliberately borrowed from a local library by the eleven year-old Naomi. The mother, herself the estranged wife of a black professor, shrugs the deal off like a wounded matador and that sort of strengthens the relationship a bit.

When the other two Africans learn of their continental brother’s involvement with a white woman and her daughter all sorts of racial politics spring up. But our protagonist seems to keep everything under his control due to his background of a good middle class New England education (for he did migrate to America when he was sixteen). Towards the end of the novel we do learn one thing: that this is what good contemporary works of fiction should be.

The climax of the novel comes at around Christmas time. The festive mood is captivating. Everyone wants to buy presents for everyone and everyone else. Stephanos decides to close shop early and sends Naomi away from their afternoon reading lessons with a note to Judith saying he has a few surprises for them by dinner time.

So off goes our protagonist on a Christmas shopping spree with whatever was earned that day from the till. His list included a journal for Naomi, a perfume for his mum including a shirt for his little brother in Ethiopia and a precious rare old hardcover copy of Dickinson’s poetry for Judith. By fall of evening when he returns to start wrapping up the gifts Stephanos finds a note on the porch which reads: “Dear Sepha, Thank you for the letter. It was very nice of you to think of us. Unfortunately, Naomi and I are leaving early this evening to spend the holiday with my sister and her family in Connecticut. I’m sure we will see you again shortly after we return. I hope you have a merry Christmas. I’m sorry. Best, JM.”

Rather than let his heart sink, Stephanos sets about measuring and cutting the gift wrapping paper for the journal, shirt, rare book and perfume. Then there’s the problem of getting the measurements right, or wrong, some sizes too big, others too small, goodness me, this wouldn’t make a good sight for Kenneth and Joseph the Congo, eh? In the end our protagonist gives up, but not without some moment of consolation, at least. A prostitute drops by and gets shooed away with the perfume, despite her complaints that perfumes give her a headache. “That’s okay. Just give it to someone you know.” The shirt (brother’s gift) and Emily Dickinson (now mum’s gift) finally reach their destination in Ethiopia, to which response mum simply sighs of that famous existential New England poetry: “Betam asazinya. It is sad. But it’s wonderful at the same time.”

This article has been specially written for those who might not have had a good Christmas and New Year break due to, like in Port Moresby for example, the cruel weather which denied a lot of us a good afternoon barbeque out in the sun with family and friends. It is also dedicated to those who are anxious to put everything else behind them and move on. The novel is deep. “But it’s wonderful at the same time.”

Redeeming poetry

2011-12-10T13:48:00.000+10:00

One of the valuable aspects of poetry is its ability to redeem. Then there are other qualities to it as well; such as its ability to uncover truth in as gentle a manner as possible so that the end result of it all comes to the human senses when it serves its ultimate purpose of healing a society. Poetry is meant to unravel, to redeem and to heal – not the other way around.

But there is something else about poetry that makes it appear so dangerously simple looking – indeed so simple looking that we feel we can easily explain it. We use the adverb “dangerously” here because the moment we explain poetry, the moment we feel we have understood that poetry, we have unknowingly committed ourselves to an error in judgement. Our version of a poem might not mean the intended message of its author.

Poetry is neither didactic nor explanatory. It remains as it is. And it is meant to be overly complex and mysterious. Only the eye of the beholder knows it essence as beauty, as truth. Poetry is, therefore, felt and known – not explained or taught.

The art of feeling and knowing poetry can best be likened to attending a ceremony when young people are in the process of being graduated at their respective schools. In some foreign schools, for example, such ceremonies are read out in Latin. Of course no one knows what is being read then, but the most important thing is going through such a ceremony with a feeling of trepidation. So much anxiety is involved here; but again so much anticipation.

Then, of course, the hour of feeling and knowing arrives.

President Ruth Simmons. Her popularity reached far beyond the shores of New England and extended as far as Papua New Guinea, especially in the world of academia.

Ruth Simmons, first African-American President of an Ivy League school (Brown University, Rhode Island, USA) does that very well comes commencement (or graduation) around June of each year at that school. After having read parts of the ceremony in Latin she leans over at her graduating youngsters and beams: “In case you are curious about what just happened, I’ve awarded you your degree.” And so the hats and hoods fly, the cloaks flutter, hugs abound, much rolling over and over and drumming and dancing upon the college green. They know what it was they were working so hard for the previous four years and they can feel it. Thus, the sacred essence of feeling and knowing poetry.

It is true poetry deals exclusively with human emotions. “Poetry is a spontaneous flow of powerful feeling,” declares one master of poetry. “Poetry is a science of words,” says another. And again, another, “Poetry is an imitation of reality.” But whatever it does, finally, declares quite another, there must be a certain “objective correlative” about it. So in essence there is always a reason that enables a person to write poetry.

The above are the basics of what are considered good poetry. Then there are the instances of bad writing such as when good poetry itself begins taking another direction. Such poetries fall under so many categories, but we can limit them here to protest, satire, caricatures and lampoons.

All these still constitute poetry but the sad aspect of them is that they last only in so far as the successive generations remember them. For example, the eternal poetic utterance: “Death, where is thy sting.” While many of us would associate that with Shakespeare the phrase actually comes from the Bible. Or, to look at another example, “to be or not to be, that is the question.” That poetic utterance, though first spoken some 700 hundred years ago, is still being used today. Question: Do we know what it means? Answer: We don’t have to. And that is what poetry really is, or ought to be.

But the poetry that seeks to teach, to explain, to reprimand, to rebuke or to even express a disappointment is hardly remembered by successive generations. That type of poetry is likely to suffer the severe scrutiny of an attentive literary critic. This is the guy who finally tells us if our writing is good or bad. And if we are wise we must believe him.

Now there have been so many poems appearing in the writers’ forum, but it is not storyboard’s business to accredit and assess them as poetry – as such observations usually come by upon invitation of each of the contributors to the forum. But there is one poem we would like to critique here, for just the reason of its pretentious stance of looking great. That poem is View of the Day by Deborah Kayuwa, represented as follows:

She came down to the beach

When they told her

And saw the familiar figure

Sitting still, looking out

To sea and the distant horizon

A moment of hesitation

Then the sure-footed steps towards

The figure; she sat down beside him

And took the half-smoked cigarette

From his fingers and smoked with him

The effect of nicotine helping a little

Her sisters came and placed thumbs

Over his eyes to shut them

For this had been the man who kept her

Vigilant 24 hours a day to answer

All her children’s needs, yet she

Could not take him into her family

She replaced the cigarette in his fingers

Fumes rising and sailing by

As they led her away, from the ocean

And the motionless figure

For a moment she thought

She would pause, look back

But walked on

Although the poem may look classical it lacks depth in the sense that both poet and persona do not correspond perfectly as truthful sounding entities. On the part of the poet one suspects a member of a certain class in society not happy with his/her upbringing, suddenly caught up in some personal liaison he/she cannot get out of easily and that the only moment of liberation foreseen is re-assimilation. On the part of the persona, well, well, could it be possible that one might be in love with something that is dead? How can a dead man smoke and watch the long expanse of sea before him for a long time. But we can only admire the persona’s decision to walk away from the beach scene. Final evaluation? According to storyboard this is not at all a good poem. The author needs to enrol in more of Soaba’s literature classes.

Meeting the white tiger

2011-11-09T15:45:00.000+10:00

Cover photo courtesy of The White Tiger blog.

The White Tiger is an extraordinary novel about modern day India, a country which we take for granted as “the world’s centre of technology and outsourcing”. The narrator albeit protagonist takes us faithfully from his humble village of Laxmangarh through the tunnels of what we might regard as the underbelly of the biggest democratic country in the world, to the bright lights and chandeliers of Delhi and Bangalore. A reviewer in USA Today describes the novel as “one of the most powerful books I’ve read in decades. No hyperbole. This debut novel from an Indian journalist living in Mumbai hit me like a kick in the head...This is an amazing and angry novel about injustice and power.”

We meet the white tiger three times. Once at a rundown, neglected village school of Laxmangarh where a visiting school inspector christens him as such a one destined to fight corruption and alleviate his nation’s poverty because he has successfully recited a sentence written in English on the blackboard. The second encounter is at a local tea shop where he is forced by his grandmother to work and earn money by breaking coal to feed the ovens, just to be jeered at by his class mates:

“What is the creature that comes along only once in a generation?” one boy asked loudly.

“The coal breaker,” another replied.

And then all of them began to laugh.

Upon our third encounter with the white tiger, which is at the National Zoo in Delhi some months later, the narrator of the novel who is also the protagonist and “the white tiger” has this to say: “Then the thing behind the bamboo bars stopped moving. It turned its face to my face. The tiger’s eyes met my eyes, like my master’s eyes have met mine so often in the mirror of the car. All at once the tiger vanished.”

Meaning, our protagonist faints. This is an astonishing novel written by the Oxford and Columbia educated author, Aravind Adiga. The novel has altogether seven chapters. All the chapters are there. Except the third chapter, which presumably covers the period of time the narrator blacked out. Which is odd for a novel to have chapters 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7, eh? No matter.

The narrative turns out to be an open letter addressed to “His Excellency Wen Jiabao, The Premier’s Office, Beijing, Capital of the Freedom-Loving Nation of China” who is about to visit Bangalore. The Premier needs to be informed about the realities of India. “Mr Premier, Sir,” our protagonist starts graciously, “neither you nor I can speak English, but there are some things that can only be said in English.”

And these things that can only be said in English become the faithful tone of honesty referred to earlier. The White Tiger is indeed an angry novel: that anger felt as truly belonging to the 21^st century; anger felt by the poor against the rich; anger felt by the least developed and less fortunate against the industrially rich and powerful, the ruthless and merciless. And by the by, as we reach the last pages of the novel, we realize that our protagonist has a far greater plan than we might have envisaged.

Balram Halwai alias Munna, for that is our protagonist’s name and by the end of the novel he will have assumed several more names and titles, goes through life as a humble school drop-out from the little village of Laxmangarh, works in a tea shop at the bidding of his grandmother (Kusum), runs away to the city where he learns and finally acquires a driving licence, then goes on to find work as a driver for a master, Ashok, who also had originated from the little village of Laxmangarh. Balram works for Ashok and his family consisting of his American wife Pinky Madam, and his brothers Mongoose and Mukesh Sir and their father known as the Stork.

He serves his masters well for a time until one night when Pinky Madam, drunk, takes over the wheels of the powerful Honda City from him in the streets of Delhi at two or three in the morning and runs over a child. The whole family present as passengers is shocked. Balram must be sacrificed for his masters. Necessary documentation has been prepared for him to sign and this in part reads: “That there were no other occupants of the car at the time of the accident. That I was alone in the car, and alone responsible for all that happened.” A lawyer has been bribed, all looks complete.

At which point the protagonist hints that the novel must end. But not before he completes a few more lectures for the Premier. India is a Rooster Coop, Balram advises. “Never before in human history have so few owed so much to so many, Mr Jiabao. A handful of men in this country have trained the remaining 99.9 per cent – as strong, as talented, as intelligent in every way – to exist in perpetual servitude; servitude so strong that you can put the key of his emancipation in a man’s hands and he will throw it back at you with a curse.”

While millions of wanted posters with his face on them are stuck on the notice boards throughout India, our protagonist of the 21^st novel retires to Bangalore a reformed man. There, to those who come to meet and know him, his reputation as a new man comes to their minds in large capital letters: “Meet Balram Halwai, the ‘White Tiger’: Servant, Philosopher, Entrepreneur, Murderer...”

And the poetry that rhymes with that, runs: “I was looking for the key for many years, but the door was always open.”

Elsewhere, within the vicinities of such geographical locations we hear echoes of same, through novels, poems, dramatic works, films, TV, videos, newspapers and radio programs and we find ourselves wondering how much of ethics and morals is visited in the dying hours of man and his endeavour to free himself from such bondage as the Rooster Coop and all the poverty, squalor and waste of human life that goes with it. The White Tiger is quite a novel and if we in PNG believe that neither the novel nor its author, Aravind Adiga, is relevant to us, then truly ol wantok we are kidding ourselves. Go to Delhi, Calcutta or Bangalore today and you will see on the walls of high rise buildings there the same betel nut spit (paang) we see on our own.

Story of a lifetime

2011-11-06T15:22:00.000+10:00

Vonu Libitino, a 2nd year literature major at UPNG, feeling good about being the first to read Sir Thomas Ritako's autobiography. Photo by Storyboard.

Arise, Sir Thomas.

An eleven year-old boy is suddenly subjected to light jokes and mannerisms of a Titan (Manus) setting and as he turns twelve begins to take those jokes seriously. The jokes best describe him as a poor waif in the true PNG traditional meaning of the term. That further translates as nogat papa nogat mama, a term which truly implies material as much as hierarchal social poverty. Who are your parents and ancestors and where are your gardens and your land? These become impeding questions that the child grows up with on Sori Island, Manus Province.

In time, however, and as he turns twelve he sees the surrounding world differently. He cannot understand why the foreigners are bombing his beautiful islands of Sori and Baramang. He joins a group of boys his age and under direction from a 70 year-old elder they marched down to sea armed with special magical leaves, dip these into the water and then try waving the bombers away from the beautiful islands. They save their islands that way and the boy himself becomes all more curious about the given setting in which he is meant to grow up.

He thinks his biological parents, particularly his father, had been mean to dump him like that on Sori Island. He becomes a subject of both convenient jesting and ridicule among even his closest relatives but it is his cousin sisters who are more sparing, and through them he learns to question his own sense of existence.

As he does at that age we begin to see the philosophical essence of how and what it feels like growing up as a Papua New Guinean during the post-war period, the fifties, the sixties, the seventies and right up to the present. Papua New Guineans who grew up during this period have learnt something important which today we must seriously regard as the hour of our intellectual re-awakening. That period in our nation’s history is important in that sense. And we begin to see this clearly through the avenue of a certain genre in literature known as the autobiography.

This is Sir Thomas Ritako’s autobiography which runs for 258 pages and becomes a worthy addition to Papua New Guinea’s autobiographical literature that includes Sir Albert Maori Kiki, Sir Paulias Matane, Sir Michael Somare and Dame Carol Kidu, to name a few known ones. There could be several more and these would most certainly include Sir Ebia Olewale or the renown Ben Moide, depending on the talents and entrepreneurship of Papua New Guinean writers as prospective biographers.

The one of Sir Thomas Ritako’s is the work of Dr Bernad Minol of UPNG and Prof Ted Wolfers of the University of Wollongong, Australia, and it is published as Arise Sir Thomas by the University of Papua New Guinea’s Bookshop. What Minol and Wolfers did was guide Sir Thomas Ritako along and he in turn put pen on paper to let his thoughts come flowing out, forming one of the finest historical literary publications of our times. The same method, of course, was used by Professor Ulli Beier when initiating Albert Maori Kiki into the world of arts and letters, a work which would later become the monumental Ten Thousand Years in a Lifetime. The moral lesson to this remark is thus absolutely clear: Papua New Guinea you have all your resources available that are within reach; you alone can write your country’s literature and history. Look around you now and see how many whose life stories you can help write and publish for our future generations.

Of course, Sir Thomas was not stranded on Sori Island, to be left there feeling sorry for himself. He did venture out from the confines of simple Titan island life and travel eventually to New Ireland where he would meet his biological parents and ask why he was seemingly abandoned to fend for himself in the company of his grandmother, Awoh, who chided him one moment but came to his rescue the next when his cousins’ jestings could hardly be contained even by the adults themselves. After that meeting with his parents Sir Thomas then resolved to do what many Papua New Guineans of his generation set their minds to do: to pursue the challenges of education to the very roots of their foundations and come up with the resolution that, yes, we all can and be.

With that determination in mind he proceeds to Utu Government School but not without his father’s wish to send him off on yet another mission, this time not to Sori Island among his own blood relatives to do the preferred traditional “growing up” exercise, but with someone else, a school teacher known as Joseph Ritako who will become a mentor as much as a parent whose name he shall bear to the end of his days. Thus, the emergence of Sir Thomas Ritako.

From Utu Sir Thomas went to Kerevat Central School and then to the famous Sogeri Central School. What proceeded thenceforth is the same series of episodes that Papua New Guineans are familiar with, but with a great difference – and that is what the name Ritako suggests. The name, which is New Ireland in origin, derives from the Manus term Dritakou – meaning “over the fence”. For we can see now that what Sir Thomas did is a step further than what Sir Albert Maori Kiki did in Ten Thousand Years in Lifetime. From Sogeri he went through several stages of heightened intellectual development, at the Fiji Central Medical School, for example, then to Port Moresby Teachers College, then to his postings as a teacher (like his two fathers before him), back to the Administrative College where he married his childhood sweetheart, Ruby, and onwards to some very important public service appointments, including overseas postings and his final achievement as a knight within the British Commonwealth of independent nations of the world.

Arise Sir Thomas is a beautiful autobiography to read. It brings fresh insight to those ideas already represented in the earlier autobiographical and biographical writings of PNG. The book also sheds light on various historical, intellectual as much as psychological details of our country, by being itself a very simple story so very simply and humbly told.

You can get your copy of Arise Sir Thomas from UPNG Bookshop at the Waigani Campus.

Poems by Deborah Kayuwa

2011-09-23T14:19:00.000+10:00

View of the day

She came down to the beach

When they told her

And saw the familiar figure

Sitting still, looking out

To sea and the distant horizon

A moment of hesitation

Then the sure-footed steps towards

The figure; she sat down beside him

And took the half-smoked cigarette

From his fingers and smoked with him

The effect of nicotine helping a little

Her sisters came and placed thumbs

Over his eyes to shut them

For this had been the man who kept her

Vigilant 24 hours a day to answer

All her children’s needs, yet she

Could not take him into her family

She replaced the cigarette in his fingers

Fumes rising and sailing by

As they led her away, from the ocean

And the motionless figure

For a moment she thought

She would pause, look back

But walked on

Walking

Amazing how men choose

To walk ahead of others

Believing they are better

Than the rest

They stroll on ahead

Oblivious of the seasons

Walking the talk, talking

The false or truth

But they walk, anyway

Now I could tell you

About my own lover

Who’d once walked the talk

Way, way ahead of me

But that is yet another story

For another time, another place

Somewhere within the galaxy

Ring bark trees

My lover, he’s simply smashing

I tell Charity, my little sis

As we trace the initials carved round

The bark of this ancient tree

So many things carved on this tree

Of and by humanity in passing

Like stars and heart shapes

And diamonds and rings

Next to twelve others

Is my lover’s name

He is the best, I do declare

I notice tears in Charity’s eyes

She weeps for joy, she tells me

I know you are happy, she says

Let there be no other, she prays

Don’t hurt this one, big sis

Poems from the Crocodile Literary Competition

2011-09-03T13:33:00.000+10:00

Photos courtesy of Ketsin Robert and Storyboard.

The 2011 Crocodile Literary Prize Competition recorded 178 entries in its poetry section. All of them represent the enormous amount of potential Papua New Guinea has in producing the best in poetry.

The themes of these poems range from custom and traditions or pasin, patriotism, heroism, self-assertion and appraisal to love, life, death, gender issues, environmental concerns, freedom of speech, conflict and resolution. Some are mildly told, others with great passion and pride. But they all represent a new generation of writers whose ages range from 11 to 35. Of a milder piece is a poem by the 11 year-old Nemora Poawai, simply titled as Poem:

I have a mother, do you?

That’s great that you have one too

I would have no other than to have her as a mother

We talk to each other from day to night

She’s like a big light

That shows me the way day and night

That’s why I love her and because she cares about me.

Then there are those that revolve around the subject of freedom of speech, a topic many writers become vocal about, such as this poem by Nini Costigan:

Freedom of Speech

How can I be free of me

When I'm not seeing what am really I

How can I salvage sanity

When I fight the one I cannot see

How can I blame insanity

When all is my; is my stupidity

All good poems are usually simply written and it is a good critic who manages a clear explanation of them so that others less familiar with this particular genre in creative literature will be able to decipher their meaning. Thus, the subject of freedom of speech as seen above: the persona feels gagged somewhat in that struggle to achieve self-expression. It is as if the persona feels the need to express a sentiment, but is inhibited by the self that ties the bond of imprisoning. Can the poem be about a society, a community of people, which might be finding it hard to express itself? Perhaps. But the poet’s duty is to witness that particular moment of metaphorical “imprisonment” which could be seen as self-censure even imposed use of control on freedom of speech. As we read the poem we feel we are struggling with the persona to express ourselves, and as it is always with us human beings there is the tendency to blame something else for that moment of struggle.

Some more good poems were found in this section of the competition. There were those that talked about loss and hope of salvation, such as the poem Lost Island by Gelab Piak, part of which is represented as follows:

We are like those locked in rooms

Crying, praying: all hope lost

Not knowing where we are

We are all around you

We cry to you, begging you to find us

All we ask is for someone to comfort and love us

Or we’ll fall deep into the arms of a vast

Blue ocean of loneliness

Kissed by the waves of anxiety

Like a lost island

Then there is a poem that actually promises hope and the will to return to one’s origins as Lapieh Landu’s I Will Return illustrates. It is a little too long to be printed here but the part that is cited sums up the main theme of the poem.

I cannot return now

For a distance I have travelled

To see this promised land

That dim dim had painted

Where knowledge was endless

And happiness so infinite

I wave goodbye to you

My home

There are so many other good examples in this section of the competition that we could cite here spacing permitting. But perhaps it is best we end up citing parts of those expressing some of the habits relished by the present generation, like the poem by Martyn Namorong titled Mobile Phones.

I love the jokes

Sent by sick folks

They are clean and dirty

And always witty

I hate chain messages

Coz they’re outrageous

Totally meaningless

And downright useless

The above poems and so many others are currently being viewed by the judges and the winning entries will be announced on the 15^th September as part of the Independence celebrations. There will be a prize giving ceremony observed immediately after a workshop where the competitors will be introduced, and there is also word doing the rounds that this is going to be one of the prestigious literary competitions ever held in the country.

Cultural Foundations

2011-08-24T17:01:00.000+10:00

The sign out at the front gates of the UPNG Waigani campus last Saturday read, “Milne Bay Cultural Day: achieving academic excellence through cultural foundations.”

Storyboard woke up at about 8 am that morning with the recollection that, yes, there must be some kind of gathering at the Drill Hall. So down he strolled by 11.33 am just to witness people walking away from that place where the main cultural activities were supposed to be. What? The festivities have ended much sooner?

Everything about Milne Bay is either culture shock or disaster.

In any Milne Bay gathering, be it a political rally or a cultural show, no one seems to be out and about, looking as if everyone is up to something or is involved in some form of human activity. But the music that comes through the acoustics seems to indicate that there is some activity going on. Even the Drill Hall itself at that hour, the so-called peak hour of any cultural activity, seemed deserted. There were signs of some dignitaries giving speeches through the loud speaker systems, but it was the attitude of the crowd that got storyboard down somewhat into silent lamentations, and that sort of thing. Who is our speaker? What is the message of his speech? And who is he addressing? This little group of betel nut vendors – that is over here by the shade of desolate gum trees? Ah, kapole hinage... egu Alotau.

Nonetheless what storyboard thought he caught wind of was some mention of Alice Wedega being the icon of the province, the name giver, the promise of the nation’s soul from that locality of Papua New Guinea. And it is well that Alice was mentioned because it is through this entity that one hopes to get into the heart of Milne Bay as a province of significance. The main message in Alice Wedega is that we listen – we listen to the heartbeat of our country.

And what that heartbeat seemed to have been telling storyboard that morning was that perhaps the cultural day itself was not properly organized. There were success stories surrounding previous cultural day activities observed at this very Drill Hall but not, sad to say, this one. Ae kafoe, yada melala.

But beneath all that atmosphere of eternal silence, that ever humble looking pregnant silence, lay the spiritual essence of the province itself. Milne Bays are such quiet people one never knows whether they are going or coming. But they are there nevertheless, forlorn and sad, stolid and rigid, but never broken. Ask them to dance and they will; to sing and they will; to build and they will. Perhaps that is what the organizers meant by the phrase “achieving academic excellence through cultural foundations”. But along the surface of things they are truly very unfriendly looking people. They build walls as it were all around them so other cultural groups cannot get into their own silent world. If you ask why they do that the answer is very simple indeed. They are very, very shy people, these Milne Bays. It takes an outsider to break the ice for them. And if an outsider feels he or she is persistently being stared at, don’t worry, a little conversation will do the trick.

So even by 3.30pm the queue at the gate was as long as it was at 11am previously. People were still buying tickets to enter the Drill Hall and enjoy the festivities. A great number came with portable sitting chairs, sitting mats, even pillows and bed sheets – oh dear, but that was the Milne Bay cultural thing.

Only one instance of negative criticism came storyboard’s way when he was moving around the sparsely distributed crowd at the Drill Hall. That the whole province was not represented enough with the necessary cultural activities such as dances and feast making rituals – not necessarily because UPNG lacked the numbers from each district of the province, but because the executive of the student body did not do enough of that protocol homework to include everybody. That complaint came from the Rabaraba faction of the University community, and there were others as well with similar complaints.

When at last the dancers took to the platforms to observe the rituals of food exchange it was not successfully ascertained which districts or language groups were involved. The obvious Trobriand Islands decorations stood out, but storyboard’s party did not seem to be sure if it was the Normanby islanders or some mainland cultural group that was partnering the former. Some spectators said it was the latter while others seemed certain the dancers were from the mainland, usually around the Alotau area itself. There was also confusion as to the paint applied as decoration on the faces of some of the dancers: one moment the same dancers seemed to be dancing in the Trobriand groups, and the next in the Esa’ala group. Oh dear. Then of course there was the convenient explanation that not many Milne Bay students were keen in getting painted and dressed up with the necessary bilas to participate fully at the festivities.

Perhaps in the next cultural festivities we will witness a more balanced sort of representation. Or are we already too tired of the Baniara dancers, quite often an equally highlighted spectacular as compared to the Trobriand one in any Milne Bay gathering? Ah, the splendour of it all. One seems to miss all that, not to mention the familiar mona shouts that proclaim the sacred essence of a traditional Milne Bay feast.

One thing, however, storyboard found memorable at that occasion. The presence of those that create the poetry and song that carries the sentiments of the province itself; Kulusia may have been missing but Hetei Dickson was there, sure enough.

The National Book Week

2011-08-05T12:07:00.000+10:00

By Nou Vada and the Storyboard Team.

Principal writer: Nou Vada

This week the Storyboard team convened an emergency meeting of some sort. There was no imminent Nuclear threat as in the pages of Tom Clancy, no revolutionary salutations as in the manuscripts of Marx and Ché, no explosive courtroom drama as in a Grisham paperback; and certainly no Asimov nightmare where the machines the human race has surrounded itself with become self-aware and in their new-found autonomy, declare war on homo-sapiens. The reason for the emergency meeting of some sort was simple: It is National Book Week.

The Storyboard Team admits it was ambushed by the event like old Fletcher in Trevor Shearston’s Sticks That Kill; killed by Koitabu Assassins. The Motu-Koitabuan villager in this day and age might find the notion of the Koitabu Assassin far-fetched (as an old hanua man used to say, “Dirava, lasi!”), but probably more far-fetched would be the claim that the Storyboard team was ambushed by the National Book Week.

The truth is, the National Book Week this year, at least at its preliminary stage has been notoriously under-hyped. One theory is that this year we have seen the departure of Sir Paulius Matane from the post of the Governor-General, and with it, the rightly needed hype the National Book Week has enjoyed in these last few years while Matane, a distinguished writer of Books himself, served as the Head of State. The silence this year has been eerie, almost like something off a Stephen King novel. Letters started coming in this week from various schools seeking to secure Storyboard as a keynote Speaker here and a special guest there and so on and so forth. Some of the letters came to Storyboard in the most unconventional of ways, almost like a scene out of the first Harry Potter novel, where Privet Drive is engulfed with Acceptance letters from Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft.

Storyboard this week would like to put up a political statement. Nothing as radical as the Communist Manifesto or the Committee of Ten’s ground-breaking submission on the future of Papua and New Guinea as told in Sir Albert Maori Kiki’s 10,000 Years in a Lifetime, just an encouragement to the Government of the day to keep up the good work in supporting the National Book Week. We’re not asking Parliament to convene an emergency sitting to discuss Willing Suspension of Disbelief in Nigel Krauth’s New Guinean Images in Australian Literature. We’re just showing our support for what we as writers believe is a most worthy cause.

The National Book Week 2011 theme is Books for Lifelong Learning. At the end of Sir Ignatius Kilage’s My Mother Calls Me Yaltep, the character Yaltep remembers his Kuman people of Chimbu Province and remembers a poem a friend once read to him:

Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and Heaven; which we are, we are;

One equal temper of Heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield

The poem speaks of the notion of Age and aging. The theme for the National Book Week 2011 asks Papua New Guineans to remember that age is irrelevant in learning because we learn until we die. We learn until we die and the last thing we learn before we die is death and dying. The statement sounds like something straight out of the Book of Ecclesiastes; of course the statement has a bit of indifferent fatalism to it, nevertheless the gist of it is true; that the human being is designed to learn until it meets its demise.

Books have always been the conventional channel of learning. As writers both established and amateur, we at the Storyboard pride ourselves that we are a designated forum for literature and books. The National Book Week is a time to remember books as a manifestation of humanity’s progress from the times of man’s deep conversations with the masalai and the spirits of the trees and the rocks to Newsfeeds and tweets on Facebook and Twitter.

We at the Storyboard wish to thank the good people of The National for giving us this column to discuss books and the stuff good books are made of and wish all our Readers, across Papua New Guinea, a Happy National Book Week.

Change of Government? Let's Celebrate!

2011-08-04T13:23:00.000+10:00

By James St Nativeson

Come friends one and all

Let's celebrate the ascension

Of the new leaders

The old familiar foxes

Donning new costumes

For an eighth month rehearsal

Pray, will there be roads

New airstrips and old re-opened

For comfortable travel

For many?

Will corruption be done away with?

And will newspapers

Quit dancing to the tune of political cronies

Come friends one and all

Let us dance that old dance

Sing that old song

That must never change in tune

Against the same old mob

Wallowing in the same old mud

Of mob rule!

A New PM for PNG?

2011-08-02T16:36:00.000+10:00

Don't panic

Good writers, artists and minstrels one and all

Just last week

Storyboard almost got thrown overboard - again!

But now

What a relief

That things could be looking

A little democratic

After all!

Let the new song

Ring out

The new dance choreographed

And a new chord

Strummed

Just for once.

OndoBondo Revived

2011-07-24T12:05:00.000+10:00

There comes a time when a nation pauses in the general course of its development to reflect. It does so to ask several questions, among them: “Was it worth it? Have we done well or ill? Where do we go from here?”

Yet no matter how reflective we feel about ourselves as a nation we cannot help but go back to those times when everything around us was full of life and colour. Those were the moments of our fancy: a festival, for example; gestures recalled; food shared; and words exchanged as lasting memories. And always, all that comes to us in the form of poetry, song and dance.

One such moment of fancy is the OndoBondo, a feast observed by the people of Binandere as much as any other in the Oro Province.

On Saturday 16^th July the Oro Students Association of the University of Papua New Guinea had their OndoBondo at the University’s Drill Hall. There were eight districts in all who were involved in this feast, among them Kokoda, Sohe or Ioma, the Ewage areas extending from Oro Bay to Ambasi and Mamba, Tufi, Central Kaiva, Bokoro, and Afore. One of these districts, possibly the Central Kaiva, stepped out and did what was true to reputation for them all by performing the famous butterfly dance – a dance in which one witnesses the splendour of the giant butterfly in flight enacted by the outstretched spread of the tapa cloth, the eternal regalia of the whole province.

The butterfly dance is commonly performed by those from Ako in the south coast to Ambasi and Manau in the north coast of the Oro Province, and occasionally by those of the Bokoro and Central Kaiva areas. Watching such a dance certainly reminds one of James St Nativeson’s poetry:

But I shall return to tradition

When I have died me that alien death

And for our reunion I’ll bark you

A laplap of tapa designs and cry:

Oro da, oro! Oro kaiva!

The initiative taken nowadays by various student associations and societies at UPNG is to bring PNG cultures closer to the doorsteps of academic environment so that this becomes part of the spiritual wellbeing of the student population itself. Some weeks earlier a similar feast was held at the same location by the students from the Autonomous Bougainville Government and that was well received by city residents. And there will be more such feasts to come.

The OndoBondo of 16^th July was observed not only by the students themselves but also by participants coming from the villages and church, women and youth groups of Oro Province itself. The result was an authentic traditional feast performed much to the satisfaction of many.

President of the Oro Students Association, Donald Moi, and his Vice-President, Sandra Kwafen, felt that the feast should be given its traditional appeal. And well that the occasion should be that way since also present at this bondo were a few of the old timers from UPNG itself who lamented not having done better in their own time.

A student called Henry Hataya of Kupiano and Oro parentage did the honours of soliciting and providing food from his Kupiano village for the entire feast. A pig was bought from 14-Mile for the occasion and this along with the food from Gavone was distributed among the participating tribes and clans of the Oro Province. It was an occasion indeed when the young of the city led by their UPNG peers came away from the hypnotizing influences of gadgets like ear pieces and cell phones to participate fully in a traditional gathering. A good number of the young got themselves painted up, wore the traditional tapa regalia, picked up the kundu drums and joined in.

The word OndoBondo itself has its significance deeply rooted in the history of the University of Papua New Guinea. In the late 70s and early 80s it succeeded Kovave as an internationally recognized literary journal, run by the then Literature Department. More importantly the journal represented the post-Ulli Beier albeit neo-colonial literary era of the country. Works represented in that journal were new, authentically Papua New Guinean. The journal proved its worth as an aftermath of the experimental “new writings” that rapidly emerged to global recognition. Then the journal changed form over the next decades becoming known as the PNG Writer briefly, and then later, with a certain degree of permanency about it, the Savannah Flames. But in the pre-electronic media days, these were the journals that overseas subscribers looked out for in the hunt of substantial research material in creative writing and literary studies.

OndoBondo also branched out in its literary publication program and took other forms of literary genre as well, such as the famous OndoBondo poster poem series which would within weeks of production sell as fast as hot cakes throughout the world. The poster poems became a better and easier format of literary production through which PNG literature was made readily available not only in PNG but elsewhere as well. It also, spiritually speaking, brought hope and encouragement to those who found themselves abroad and studying at foreign universities. In the mid-80s, for example, a strayed OndoBondo poster poem somehow found its way to Brussels where, it was learned, a Papua New Guinean read it and broke into tears. The poem at least brought him closer to home.

But the point that storyboard is getting at here is how quickly the present generation of young scholars have taken up the sacred essence and meaning of the word OndoBondo or simply bondo. The word signifies the human mood of festivity. But that mood of festivity, looked at closely in its philosophical context, denotes the feast of thinking. We speak of OndoBondo in intellectual terms as we would trudge through countless forests of human wonder and mystery in search of a clearing – wherewithal a certain celebration must ensue. And we must celebrate because we see that we have arrived at that clearing. Now if we read the Preface of Kwamra we will get closer to seeing what this means. The pursuit of education and in indeed the quest of knowledge simply means walking through forest in search of a clearing. After we have completed that degree, yes sir, it means we have arrived at the clearing.

When we know we have arrived we must hold the OndoBondo feast. Oro kaiva!

Wings of Hope

2011-07-21T18:19:00.000+10:00

By Jeffrey Febi

PNG’s rural areas are the forgotten lands; where lack of government’s presence and the consequent high illiteracy, and high maternal and infant mortality is a tragedy.

In such places, where many only hear exaggerated stories of the outside world and then conjure up mental pictures to charm their imaginations, there’s only one way out to the world they dream of. This is the way of the metal birds.

They come in different shapes and sizes; they are the sounds of technology and the wings of hope that grace the skies of remote rural PNG. They are the birds of Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF), Seventh Day Adventist Aviation (SDA), and Airlines PNG to name a few.

These birds are the wings of hope for the very ill; they are the transporters of coffee bags; they are the only connection through which a glimpse of the outside world is manifested.

For decades, through thick and thin they have served remote rural PNG faithfully. Many who have piloted these birds over rugged terrains and into deep valleys are brave men indeed. Some have lost their lives while others continue, not because there’s a fortune to be made but because their hearts are burdened by the tragedy they witness.

The poem below celebrates these wings of hope and the men who fly them over PNG’s rugged terrain

Wings of hope

On their gentle wings,

Women and children fly.

And sickman eventually finds

Peace, healing and more.

O how they grace the skies,

And hope they bring to many

A forgotten soul who, under

Cloud cover and thick jungles

Speak of dreams of hope.

And gather in enthusiastic crowds,

With smiles the sun and the moon,

Can only hope for in their brightest.

Then their dreams fly,

Into clouds to sing to others who

Can hear and let their hearts beat.

To a disharmony that pervades

Many a fine land on cruel ridges,

In deep valleys and on lonely islands,

Where the sun and the moon

Mock day and night.

O these birds, sounds of technology

That grace our skies thru thick and thin;

Aren’t they our wings of hope?

Thousands have benefited and thousands more will benefit. Let us all together thank them for the things they have done. Thank you Wings of Hope

A journey to Port Moresby

2011-07-16T15:38:00.000+10:00

By storyboard guest writer, Smith Irogi.

Months of strenuous fund raising in our humble surrounds of Bogaboga, Milne Bay Province, saw our group of 19 Christian adventurers ready at last to travel to Port Moresby. It was 5 am, Friday, 24^th June.

The sea was calm and the wind still.

There were heard footsteps hurrying about as we loaded our gear onto two community dinghies that we’d hired and which were moored along the white sandy beach of our beautiful village. Then the 19 of us, 10 men and 9 women, boarded the dinghies and slipped into the open sea, shattering the silence of the morning with 40hp engines.

The journey across Goodenough Bay to Awaiama was long and tedious as the sea was exceptionally calm and of deepest blue. A few of us dozed off. Some 4 hours later we landed at Awaiama, a greyish and lonesome looking stretch of coastline compared to Bogaboga.

Half an hour later we boarded a PMV and travelled another 4 hours or so along a dirt road of pebbles and stones toward Alotau, arriving there at 1.00 pm.

Saturday next day, 25^th June, saw our group unable to meet the cost of travel to Port Moresby on a Starship. By 3.00 pm, however, our leader secured a PMV which took us on some more dirt road but closer to the famous Magi Highway.

Landscape on this part of our journey began taking different forms, hour by hour. New places came into view, strange landmarks seen and familiar historical spots recalled and seen in actuality. Once, we were told we were at Nube only to learn we were at a place called Borai. The next day, Sunday 26^th, we reached Nube itself.

By Monday, 27^th June, we are scrambling for dinghies to take us to Kapari. Due to rough weather we use up 8 hours to travel from Nube to Kapari. And in that process my phone slips into the ocean, else I’d provide you some digital photos of some of the beautiful places we have seen.

Nonetheless it is 7.30 am, Tuesday 28^th, and we are leaving Kapari for Port Moresby, stopping briefly at Kwikila around noon for some biscuits and lolly water from a trade store, then onwards to the city; for some of us, a sight indeed from Erima, 5Mile, Boroko and Tokarara to behold for the first time. A few of the women huddle up closer to us men because of the strangeness of the city.

We are here the 19 of us to sing songs of praise and worship. A few parishes of our own (Anglican) along with other Church denominations have invited us to sing and worship with them. Wherever we go and sing our hosts feel the power of God’s love with us.

We sing mostly in Are, our mother tongue. It is the first language in Papua New Guinea that the entire Bible was translated into in 1904.

Oro dancers joining in with the Bogaboga fellowship group at St Paul's 9-Mile church festivities.

The St Paul's parish at 9-Mile became the first host of this Bogaboga fellowship group, when opening its Brian Bell funded new church building on July 3rd. The Right Reverend Peter Ramsden, Bishop of the Port Moresby diocese opened and blessed the new church building.

The learner: more on trilingual experiments

2011-07-08T12:44:00.001+10:00

Two women at the Waigani Campus, Ruth Kamasungua and Irene Kawakami Gashu, think they have come up with a brilliant idea in creative writing that our readers might be interested in.

It is to present a volume of poetry, almost in the Papua Pocket Poets fashion that will contain three languages: English, Tok Pisin and Argentinean Spanish. Ruth Kamasungua is the poet while Irene Kawakami Gashu does the translations into Spanish.

Storyboard has so far experimented through the blogs with a couple of these poems and they were well received. The first poem is “The Learner” and if one wishes to see how that looks like in this tri-lingual experiment then the following would be it.

The Learner

Tall, short, thin, fat

Young and old

They come in all sizes and shapes

They swarm this place

In the sea of busybodies

Books, books, books

They bury their heads

In the quick sand

Of knowledge

With great determination

Their thirst never quenched

Nor does knowledge ever ends

Then of course you have your Tok Pisin translation of the poem which looks like this:

Man i kisim save

Longpela, sotpela, bunatin na fetpela

Yangpela na lapun

Ol i kam long kainkain seip

Ol pulimapim dispel ples olsem bi

Buk buk buk

Ol I painim het bilong ol

Long wasan

Bilong kisim save

Wantaim strogplea tingting

Hangere long dringim dispel wara bilong save

Ino save pinis

Na save tu ino save pinis

The Spanish (Argentina) version of the same poem runs as follows:

El Estudiante

Alto, bajo, delgado, gordo

Joven y viejo

Vienen en todo tipo de tamaños y formas

Arrebozan este lugar

En el mar de ocupación

Libros, libros, libros

Sumergen sus cabezas

En la arena movediza

Del conocimiento

Con gran determinación

Su sed no se apaga nunca

Ni el conocimiento termina

There are about twenty-five poems in this volume and such a tri-lingual printing of the poems would enable the book to run for some eighty pages including a preface and a glossary of words.

When asked what the purpose of this publication would be Ruth explained that it would be a worthy experiment and would deserve an audience in Papua New Guinea. We have so much influx of linguistic tourism going on in our country we quite overlook the literacy potential such publications can have. Our Tok Pisin literature proves by far the most popular in the tourism world and translations such as this where three or more languages are involved would help a lot in boosting our sentiments of literacy and better explanations of ourselves to other cultures. Of course by that both Ruth and Irene would recommend usages of not only English, Tok Pisin and Spanish (Argentina) but other languages as well.

The other side of the coin would be that in the case of Ruth and Irene one would be looking at a certain amount of linguistic experience there enough to see. For example, with those wishing to know more about the Argentinean version of the Spanish language, one need not look far as Irene would always be there to help. That of course would mean having to learn and use other languages in the world as well.

Ruth and Irene’s book of tri-lingual poetry is currently in its workshop format. A title will be thought up and rumour has it that a publisher is already thinking of the possibility of printing the book.

The nature of our business

2011-06-24T12:54:00.000+10:00

Illustration as adapted by the National Weekender.

While storyboard’s followers are regarding the phrase “storyboard as a business enterprise” with amusement, quite a number of our well read and respected citizens are thinking otherwise.

An explanation of what storyboard means by the phrase “business enterprise” seems in order.

But first, let us refresh our minds with storyboard’s initial idea in proposing to run “Soaba’s Storyboard” as a column in the Weekender pages of the National newspaper.

It is to offer book reviews for mass consumption, particularly within the academia and the student populations at various tertiary and generally educational institutions throughout the country. It is to share views and opinions on PNG literature with those who are interested in literature and in books in general. Above all, it is to provide entertainment through the avenue of print media from out of a world, namely, the arts and belles lettres, which not many may be keen in visiting. But the emphasis of all this lies on the pleasure one derives from reading the storyboard. That, of course, calls for a specialized skill in writing.

Now to the phrase “business enterprise” and storyboard’s purpose in using that terminology.

To regard storyboard as a “business enterprise” means precisely that its current main contributor is not the sole owner. Here, both the teacher and student of literature will agree. Soaba’s Storyboard belongs to every Papua New Guinean not necessarily as a business enterprise in the true sense of the term, but as a forum of discussion and exchange of views and opinions on literature. Our purpose in using the term “business enterprise” is to enable this crowd of Papua New Guineans to claim ownership of the storyboard. They are thus free to exercise that sense of ownership by contributing to “the board” as guest writers, not on“cash up front” but on “a penny for your thought” basis. That program we believe would benefit the aspiring writer or student of literature in a lot of ways and without much cost from potential sponsors and stakeholders.

Subsequently, the phrase “business enterprise” becomes an advertisement, but more precisely an expression of invitation to those writers anxious to get their thoughts down on paper. These budding writers must be given easier access somehow to expressing their views than they are now. The phrase “business enterprise” in this sense appears merely as an academic rendering of “linguistic acrobatics” – nothing more nothing less. It must not be mistaken as a clause or parts thereof extracted from a Memorandum of Association/Agreement, Articles of Association or any such legal document associated with any existing business enterprise in PNG.

The phrase further alludes as a literary device to that select and special PNG crowd known as writers, artists, musicians, academics, students and the like. The term merely becomes their “badge of honour”, an expression as noted earlier inviting their active participation through the storyboard column. None of these entities wilfully thinks and operates in monetary or financial terms about how the world around them revolves. They choose to view the world from that perspective and the chances are that the whole country goes into ruin.

Writers are creative innovators interpreting the mysteries of the mind, not doers leading all and sundry into disarray.

To illustrate this particular point: Nora Brash in the early 80s solicited the services of Post Courier with a front page photograph of students dressed up as police officers doing a mock-up of, as the caption ran, “police brutality on campus”. Outraged, the executive police personnel visited the campus demanding an explanation. Nora explained that she was producing the play “Black Market Buai” (or was it “The High Cost of Living Differently”?) and perhaps a little publicity would not hurt in drawing in a good crowd of theatre goers so that she could pay her performers at the end of the day.

In essence, writers are poor. They are not meant to exercise any element of industrial power over others. They merely deserve an audience, that’s all.

A similar illustration* reveals to us that in the late 1920s* a group of thugs jumped on a plane in Chicago to travel all the way to the west coast (California) to demand an explanation from a certain film director at Hollywood why he had titled his film “Scarface”. Al Capone won’t like this, they’d advised. Thereupon the film director embarked in all humility one imagines on explaining to his visitors that all this was art and that “it reflects the times that we live in.” “Good,” came the quick nods of approval. “We’ll tell boss that,” and back they went to Chicago.

But whatever method that a writer chooses to express an idea in, that method must never deviate from the mainstream of what we regard as logic. He is consciously testing out new ideas and ideals, doing the best he can to ensure that those ideas and ideals work for the benefit of his readers and followers. In the end it is the art of all his intentions that matters. And that art must seriously be good in the truest meaning of the word.

Several weeks ago a group of literature students dropped by at storyboard’s office to announce that they were interested in becoming guest writers to his column. It was a new sort of idea in the realms of newspaper columns and Weekender feature articles but one that storyboard himself kept mulling over for quite some time. Why not was the initial reaction then, since after all storyboard itself is quite an “enterprising” idea. So a discussion ensued. It was then that Nicko Tundem, a third year literature major at the University of Papua New Guinea, first coined the phrase “storyboard as a business enterprise”. Said Nicko to storyboard: “You are our father. We study how you live. We will live like you right through to the end.” What Nicko meant then was that Soaba’s Storyboard had suddenly become an established entity unto itself and its author did not have to be Russell Soaba all the time.

*Storyboard cannot now remember the name of the biographer of Mr. Capone that he read many years ago nor the date of that incident. That is one humorous part of the work he remembers to this day.

It is you who will carry on

2011-06-23T15:47:00.000+10:00

Storyboard as a business enterprise

Storyboard has indeed become a big business enterprise in Papua New Guinea. Its guest writers are responding favourably we notice.

Assuming the duties and responsibilities of a guest writer this week is Ted Wika Kaleo, also a second year literature major along with our previous guest writer, Charmaine Sialis, with his impressions on the course, Literature and Politics.

It is you who will carry on

by Ted Wika Kaleo

“Is it true that literature was the main driving force in Papua New Guinea’s fight for political independence?”

Mr. Soaba asked repeatedly in our first Literature and Politics class. He looked around expecting someone to give a bright explanation. Silence developed. Everyone just frowned at the question as if they knew nothing. The afternoon seemed hot. Very hot indeed.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, all right.”

It was a Thursday afternoon a few minutes earlier when I walked out of the library and walked towards the Arts Lecture Theatre. The campus was busy. Students moved in every direction, going to and coming from lectures and tutorials with books tightly held to their sides. Watching them from the footpath, they looked like restless ants at work in the shimmering heat. Some stopped to wipe out sweat from their faces while others chatted as they moved. As I walked past the Kuri Dom Building, I glanced into each lecture room. There were students listening and taking notes. In one hall, some excited students bounced in the corner while others passed time chatting up in small groups.

“These students seem to waste so much of their time,” I thought as if I was one of those time-conscious individuals who do things on time. Still walking, my thoughts flashed back to the old school. I recalled those famous quotes on the wall of our literature classroom. One of them read: “Someone who tells his brother to remove a speck from his eye without first having to take it off from his own eye is a fool.” These words were unforgettable. A moment later I felt that I was wrong in judging these innocent students. A sudden feeling of guilt struck me.

“Oh, God, I know I’m wrong. Please forgive me,” I whispered repeatedly as if I was speaking to a friend walking close by. A moment of silence developed in me. I closed my eyes and felt the afternoon breeze sweep through my face...

“Shit! Five minutes late,” I said as I rushed for the lecture. I could not waste time anymore. I walked straight into the lecture hall and found him. He had already begun his lectures. His lectures were so powerful that it gained much of our attention. Many students took down notes while some of us listened attentively, never to miss out any word that came out his mouth.

“I think I know this old guy,” I thought as I frowned at him. His photograph and writing appear frequently in the National. His literary works also appear in many of our literature and history books. Some of them were about our country’s political independence.

“Yes, yes of course, I know him. He is Mr. Storyboard,” I whispered while I studied his face carefully. His narrowed eyes were fringed with white eyebrows. His forehead wrinkled as he gave short frequent smiles. Although he looked old, he was more active. His actions and words were like that of an eighteen year old. He spoke plainly and his lectures were often challenging. At any point, I listened carefully trying to absorb every bit of information he was giving.

“The politics of Papua New Guinea could not have come this far without the work of literature,” he begun. “Our early writers recognized the importance of literature and made considerable use of it in the political development of this country. You see, Papua New Guinea was so fortunate in a sense that it gained its independence without any bloodshed. Countries like South Africa and Vietnam did not see the importance of literature in their struggle for political independence. Hence, they plunged into public riots and unrest that resulted in heated battles with their colonial powers.”

I listened in silence, trying to grasp what he was attempting to say. I did not care whether I took notes or not. All I wanted to know was the history of our country – to know how the use of literature paved the way in our country’s political independence. This is because facts were absolutely new to me. I had never learnt that in my old school. I only knew little from my history class that Papua New Guinea got its independence quickly because of the native attitude in helping war victims.

“We were fortunate to have writers like Albert Maori Kiki, Leo Hannett, Nora Vagi Brash, and so many others who have seen the importance of literature in this country,” he continued. “They have used their writing to criticize, fight political oppression, mobilize the masses and advance political agenda in the face of colonial administrators to liberate our people. Now we are lucky to do things on our own. We don’t see the colonizer telling us ‘do this’ or ‘do that’ anymore. Indeed literature has freed us. Thanks to our early writers.”

“It’s quite interesting. Really interesting to learn some new facts about our country’s independence,” I whispered to a friend who was scribbling away on his pad. The student did not say anything. He just kept nodding his head. I withdrew and faced Mr. Soaba again.

“So you mean literature is the main driving force in the fight for political independence of our country?” the student asked after he had scribbled down all his notes. I guessed he had the same feeling as me. He had been very quiet in taking down every word that came out of Mr. Soaba since the lecture began.

“Yes, yes. That’s precisely what I’m saying here, my friends. Literature was that political tool for the native writer. They used every aspect of our literature to challenge the colonial administration in order to bring about independence for our country,” (replied Mr. Soaba to our silent questionings) as he stepped forward to face us. “And now, listen, everyone,” he continued. “Political independence was the final result of the efforts of our early writers. They achieved what they had been fighting for. Because of their critical works, we got independence and lived up to that to this day. But what about our literary journey in the future politics of this country? Who will carry on what had already begun?” He paused, took a deep breath and looked around as if he had told us everything that we wanted to know. Suspense developed. Everyone stared; open mouthed, and waiting to hear what he would say next.

“It is you who will carry on, “he spoke out at last. And this time he let out that unconditional smile that he had never ever given throughout his lectures. We clapped and whistled as if we were partying at a concert. The noise died down at once – silence returned.

Suddenly, we heard murmurs coming from the doorway. We turned around. It was a group of students – the other class. They were about to come in for their lecture. Mr. Soaba glanced at his watch and at the students standing at the door – then again at his watch.

“It’s time. Eurest beckons.”

We left.

Know your country

2011-06-10T15:22:00.000+10:00

by guest writer Charmaine Sialis

I was stunned. I felt like pinching myself and probably I would wake up. Am I dreaming? But I was not dreaming. It was Friday morning of week 12. And this was really the last class of Literature and Politics. How did time fly so fast? I wondered. Mr Soaba had just wished us all the best in our studies for our exam in two weeks time.

He then looks at us and smiles. ‘The content of the exam will basically be testing how well you know your country. Do you know your country?’

“’Do you know your country?’” Did we? Was the question my course mates and I were pondering that day. As David, Clyde and I headed back to the library after class we could not help but question each other: ‘What did he mean?’

David spoke what we all were thinking. ‘I think he means we must know how literature has influenced political development – from the colonial period to Independence.’

Clyde adds, ‘Also if we know who was the first Papua New Guinean to write a book or something like that.’

‘That makes sense,’ I replied.

And it did. Suddenly it was as if someone had switched on a light bulb in my head just at that moment.

It was a bright beautiful Tuesday morning when I had entered ALT for the first class of Literature and Politics at the beginning of this first semester of 2011. While making my way to ALT, it had been obvious that the students were excited to ‘kick off’, as many would put it, with school. I too was excited but also anxious. Excited because I could not wait to see what this course was about. But I also was not sure whether I would be capable of handling this course in addition to my other three courses. So I thought I had all the right reasons to be anxious, why not? Little did I know that I would learn so much and yet so little from this course.

Our lecturer had already entered the ALT. After greeting us, he took down our names and said that he just needed our names, so we could leave and come back on Thursday. Sandra and I left the classroom together. I knew her as my brother’s girlfriend and was surprised but pleased that she would be my course mate too, even if it would only be for this one course. As we were walking out we tried to figure out what we would be learning from this course because our lecturer had not really gone into detail in the introductory lecture. But we wanted to know what was in store for us so we parted knowing that we would meet up again on Thursday and attend the Literature and Politics class.

Thursday afternoon saw my course mates and me sitting anxiously. Sandra and I were murmuring as quietly as possible to each other in the second row of the ALT. The rest of our course mates were scattered around ALT also talking quietly with each other. We all were awaiting the arrival of our lecturer, Mr Russell Soaba. I must say, when he entered and started his lecture and gave us a course outline, as he puts it, I really did not understand what to expect from this course just yet.

I looked at the course outline and noticed he had stated that the course would attempt to examine how much literature has influenced the political developments from the colonial period to Independence and right up to the present.

How will we be examining literature’s influence? How does literature influence the political development of PNG? These questions were just swarming through my head at that moment.

‘Do you know what the course is about?’ Mr Soaba is asking.

I jerk myself out of my dilemma, hoping no one noticed that I was doing 60 kilometres per minute in my mind. We all looked at him expectantly. Surely he would tell us. He would not leave us confused.

But he does not.

He merely chuckles and says, ‘I do not know too.’

‘Great!’ I exclaimed to Sandra. ‘So how are we supposed to know?’

There were some prescribed texts listed on this handout. Mr Soaba went through the handout with us.

‘After reading these prescribed texts and the recommended texts, you should know what this course is about.’

So that’s it, these books have the answer. I understood. I knew I had to read them if I wanted to learn something from this course. So I set out to read these books, thinking that it would be that simple. I would read and boom! Lights would flash and I would know how literature influenced politics. After reading through these books, however, I know now how wrong I had been to think like that. I see now that it is how I analyse these books that will count in the end because that is only how I began to understand how literature influenced politics. In the process, I learnt about Papua New Guinea.

I did not understand at first how the stories and articles which Mr Soaba issued to us to read and analyse would help us in this course. Also why every time we asked him about the next assignment, he would chuckle and say, ‘It will come, it will come.’

But I do understand now. In a way, he had started us on an extraordinary adventure through literature and then let us loose so that we could discover for ourselves its beauty and uniqueness.

Today, as the sun is shining through the curtains of the New Guinea Collection Section (of the library) I cannot help but smile. As the sun is lighting up this room, my mind is also being enlightened.

‘He knew what he was doing all the time.’ I chuckle to myself.

When he instructed us to read all the prescribed and recommended texts, Mr Soaba was equipping us with the tools that will help us to know our country. Through these books and through the seminar presentations that our class had throughout these past weeks I’ve learnt that literature moved my country to fight for its (political) independence and continues to guide her to becoming a better country. But is that enough? I cannot help but wonder. I realize I have learnt so much about my country yet so little to actually know my country.

Postscript

A third year literature major at UPNG, Nick Tundem, who comes from the Wau Bulolo area, pointed out not long ago, and correctly so, that since Soaba’s Storyboard is a forum of opinions and views on PNG Literature, ownership by way of contributions should therefore go to every other Papua New Guinean writer as well. Subsequently, Nicko was invited to provide an article on Then Thousand Years in a Lifetime, but since that is taking a while to arrive we have invited this week a fellow student of his, Charmaine Sialis, a second year literature major, to take up the services of a guest contributor (as noted above).

Guest contributions are welcome at: ribuadakaipune@gmail.com.