Una Marson: Selected Poems (Caribbean Modern Classics)

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Marson returned to London in 1938 to continue work on the Jamaican Save the Children project that she started in Jamaica, and also to be on the staff of the Jamaican Standard. In March 1940, Marson published an article entitled "We Want Books - But Do We Encourage Our Writers?" [21] in Public Opinion, a political weekly, in an effort to spur Caribbean nationalism through literature. In 1941, she was hired by the BBC Empire Service to work on the programme Calling the West Indies, in which World War II soldiers would have their messages read on the radio to their families, [22] [23] becoming the producer of the programme by 1942. Una Marson: poems of a Jamaican literarypioneer Posted: August 6, 2016 | Author: Zócalo Poets | Filed under: English, English: Jamaican Patois, Una Marson | Comments Off on Una Marson: poems of a Jamaican literarypioneer Una continued to contribute to the International Women Suffrage News. Marson is listed as a contributor alongside familiar names such as HG Wells and Vera Brittan. Through her work not only highlighted the needs of those in Jamaica but also challenged the racism she experienced in Britain. In many ways, Marson unselfishly employed her literary status to foster and build upon the development of a Caribbean literary canon. In her desire to advance Jamaican literature and culture, Marson formed the Writers Club, the Kingston Drama Club, and the Poetry League during the 1930s. Marson was also responsible for starting a publishing press. In 2022, Lenny Henry's production company, Douglas Road Productions, made a television documentary entitled Una Marson, Our Lost Caribbean Voice, broadcast on BBC Two, in which Delia Jarrett-Macauley asks: "How could we have let someone of Una Marson's calibre just disappear?"; the film included dramatisations of Marson's life, in which she was played by Seroca Davis. [39] [40] Bibliography [ edit ]

A luxury liner which transported the British middle class whites fleeing the war to Jamaica. I sold Donnell, Alison (30 July 2018). "Una Marson: Feminism, anti-colonialism and a forgotten fight for freedom". In Bill Schwarz (ed.). West Indian intellectuals in Britain. Manchester University Press. Marson started her journalist career at the Critic in Kingston and then later started her own magazine, Cosmopolitan. The magazine was filled with feminism, radical politics, fashion, housekeeping, and poetry. It was the first Jamaican magazine owned and edited by a woman. The magazine only lasted a few years, but Una had gained significant experience. After the closure of the magazine, Una continued to publish poetry including a collection of poems in Tropic Reveries in 1930. Arrival in London Delia Jarrett-Macauley, The Life of Una Marson,1905-1965 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998). p.5 Marson's poetry was included in the 1992 anthology Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby. [16]The Library's buildings remain fully open but some services are limited, including access to collection items. We're In her introduction, Donnell skillfully places Marson’s critical reception in the context of both twentieth and twenty-first century scholarship, noting that critics have “cast her as feminist or feminine; as nationalist or internationalist; as traditionalist or experimenter”—“sampling” her work so that “significant parts of her archive have been allowed to masquerade as the whole.” Donnell rejects the “categorizing of [Marson’s] work according to oppositional poetic and political modes,” recommending instead that we “set these seemingly competing archives of her work alongside each other.” West Indies Calling,” a 1943 newsreel featuring Una Marson introducing other West Indian public figures on the BBC

Today, Marson is recognised as the first major woman poet of the Caribbean and an outstanding feminist. Marson was a vulnerable yet worldly-woman who dedicated her life to the great causes of her day including gender equality and racial solidarity which she most poignantly portrayed in her poem ‘There will come a time’ (1931) where she looked forward to the day when peoples of the world …will look to each other’s hearts And souls, and not upon their skin … while I live, ‘Tis mine to share in this gigantic task Of oneness for the world’s humanity. So I gave it a try and on the 28th March 1941 I was accepted into the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), given a unform and kit and my training began.While working for the BBC, being an international advocate for Jamaica, contributing to suffrage newspapers, Marson also continued to pursue her poetry. In 1945, she published Western Mail– 2 November 1945