Blogs

I never should have told you about Calabash. 

Thanks to big-mouthed people like me, the heavenly literary festival, 22 years ago a gathering of 300 people in a small Jamaican fishing village, now attracts some 3,000 people from across the globe—and this year hit new levels of high profile: Angelina Jolie turned up, and none other than Town & Country magazine dubbed the festival “the world’s most glamorous book club.” 

Journalists are not the only ones to blame. The stunning litany of illustrious authors who’ve read at Calabash over the years—among them Edwidge Danticat, Junot Diaz, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Amiri Baraka, Colson Whitehead, Derek Walcott, rapper/philosopher Akala, actor/novelist Michael Imperioli and Salman Rushdie, to name a few—inevitably went home and raved about the so-called “earthy, inspirational, daring and diverse” place where writers are rock stars, books sell like beer, everyone is smart but no one is pretentious, and the venue (Jakes Hotel, a beachfront property where butterflies are colorful confetti and the ocean is a persistent, calming soundtrack) is impertinently flawless.

Here’s the good news, though: No amount of popularity can taint the divinity of Calabash. It’s simply too inherently, well, correct. This year’s staging of it last month—after a five-year hiatus on account of the pandemic—thus prompted reflections on why Calabash is such an important institution and, especially, what it has to teach our troubled world

Throngs of word at Calabash - CALABASHBorders Are Not Real 

During a given reading at Calabash this year I heard these languages: English, Korean, Spanish, Mohave, Jamaican patois, Trinidadian (yes, I consider that a language, especially as writer Kevin Jared Hosein intoned it). I heard poems, stories, novels, memoirs, conversational banter and perfectly crafted rants (kudos, Staceyann Chin!). I took in words from young authors with first books and veterans who’ve written dozens of them, stories from across the world and around the corner (as the iconic Joyce Carol Oates put it during her onstage conversation with Paul Holdengraber, “the regional is the universal.”). I heard a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer (poet Natalie Diaz) and then a Grammy-nominated reggae artist (Tanya Stephens, who performed at the late-night “Calabashment”—because how can this be a literary festival in Jamaica and there’s no reggae and sound-system dance?).

Calabash reminds us that we who make borders should unmake them. This means all borders: between nations, languages, genres and ages, between the scholarly and the profane, the so-called highbrow and the things dubbed lowbrow. The beauty that is Calabash is the full spectrum of the world and the manifold human experience.

Calabash co-founder Kwame Dawes and iconic Jamaican-British poet Linton Kwesi Johnson at Calabash ... - CALABASH

Be Still When was the last time you sat and simply listened? No swiping, no moving, no watching of a screen—just sat and got doused in words: a bedtime story, a solid hour of poetry, a scintillating conversation. Thank you, Calabash, for reminding us that being still is itself an art.

Poetry is Essential Speaking of a solid hour of poetry, we don’t get enough of that in our daily lives. Such was my revelation on day two of Calabash: Poetry is an essential need. Then, magically, everything started to fashion itself into a poem. The pelicans diving for breakfast in the morning rays. The lone bottle of red stripe poised on a wooden table by the beach, whispering of last night’s bashment. My sunburn: a hangover from getting drunk on sunshine. See what I mean? Calabash makes poets of us all and shapes lyrics from mundane moments.

Ocean Front Bungalow At Jakes Hotel In Jamaica - GETTY

Not all Tourism is Created Equal Calabash would not be Calabash without Jakes Hotel, a cluster of exquisitely eccentric cottages scattered playfully across six rocky, beachfront slices of Jamaica. The hotel is the embodiment of a creative legacy, owned by the family of Calabash co-founder and producer Justine Henzell, whose father, Perry, directed the 1973 classic Jamaican film The Harder They Come. Jakes, meanwhile, would not be Jakes without Treasure Beach, the community to which it’s integral: a beautiful mecca of farmers, fisherman, red earth and sea. There is good reason why everyone onstage at Calabash is compelled to thank the hotel and the Treasure Beach community: Both represent all that’s right about Jamaican tourism—not imported eats, high-rise all-inclusives and obsequious pandering but locally grown delights, architecture as landscape-fitting art and service sans servitude that directly benefits the people.

Joy and dance at Calabash 2023 - CALABASH

The Best Things in Life are Free It’s a cliché, but one worth being reminded of. Calabash does not have an entry fee or even a ticket, for that matter. The world’s most in-demand authors fly to Jamaica to read for free (to the shock and dismay of their agents). The Calabash Acoustic Ensemble, who always close out the festival with a tribute to a classic reggae band or album (this year, Third World)—it’s made up of stalwart Jamaican musicians Ibo Cooper, Stevie Golding, Seretse Small and more—play a masterpiece of a show that is, again, free and open to everyone. How, after all, can a price tag be put on vibes so high?