Incantation
for next time
by Christian Campbell (‘01)

Make the lips taut, to hurl out words
like juju seed. Cock your head
to the side. Let your face hold your fury.
Throw a good cut-eye. Flare your nostrils.
Hold your arm slant-wise. Point your gun
fingers. Be stink. Raise your shoulders high.
Raise hell. Swallow things up. Let your eyes
see through it all. Play crazy. Talk too fast
and spit. Be ready. Be unalone. Big up
your chest. Suck your teeth. Talk back.
Fling out poems. Wail for me and wail:

O let us fix
somebody business
good good good.

Copyright © Christian A. Campbell. All right reserved. Used by permission of the author

Christian A. Campbell, a Bahamian-Trinidadian poet and critic, was born and raised in The Bahamas. He studies and teaches at Duke University, where he is a PhD candidate in English in the fields of Caribbean literary and cultural studies, African-American literature, and postcolonial theory. His work has appeared in journals and anthologies throughout the Caribbean and the US such as The Caribbean Writer, Atlanta Review, Calabash, Poui, American Literature, and Turtle Dreams: An Anthology of Bahamian Art and Writing. At Duke, he has won grants and awards to conduct research and to present his work in the Caribbean, the US, and England. Christian is a 2002 Commonwealth Caribbean Rhodes Scholar, only the second Bahamian to win a Rhodes Scholarship, and will continue his doctoral work at the University of Oxford in Fall 2002. A former member of the Bahamian National Swim Team, he is currently completing his first collection of poetry entitled The Biggest Sound.

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