Looking for Cazabon

Lawrence Scott

(Papillote Press, 2024)

Review by Nicole-Rachelle Moore

Looking for Cazabon, Lawrence Scott’s debut poetry collection, brings the 19th century Trinidadian painter Michel-Jean Cazabon back into focus. Light Falling on Bamboo, Scott’s biographical novel about the artist, was published twelve years ago and these poems – mainly sonnets – were written while the author lived in Trinidad for three years (2006-2009) researching and writing, bringing Cazabon to life. Arranged into geographical and topographic sections like ‘On The Coast’, ‘Into The Hills’ and ‘London’, many of the poems evoke the continuity and flow of the physical landscape.

Following in the painter’s footsteps took the writer to Guyana and Martinique. ‘Georgetown Demerara’ transports the reader to witness the sights and scenes experienced by Cazabon and the Martiniquan photographer Hippolyte Hartmann:

‘…The boats arrive at the Demerara Stelling from upriver;
the interior disgorges its food at Stabroek Market.
A water-colourist and a photographer set up their tripods;
the pace of the 19th century is caught in lithographs.’ 

Confident in Trinidad as his cultural anchor, Scott references a variety of international writers while creating scenes and situations set in the land he knows so well: North American poet Mark Strand, British essayist Adam Phillips, Cuba’s Alejo Carpentier and Greek poet Constantine Cavafy are among them. While extolling the beauty and light of Trinidad that stimulated Cazabon’s work, the poet directs our gaze to the country’s underbelly. In ‘On Chancellor Hill Of Parrots and Politics i and ii’, the awe and elation elicited by picturesque vistas and the ‘piercing rattle’ of Venezuelan parakeets, are voided by crime and divisive politics: 

‘…On returning to our car, violence;
a socked rock, a smashed window, splintered glass.’

                                    ‘…Megaphone orations
in the valley: the noise of politicians
block out the parrots, with their vacuous rant,
kill the music with dangerous, racist cant.’

‘East Coast Manzanilla’ ends with Scott’s unambiguous gaze at Trinidad’s murder rate: 

‘With these and all other prayers I’ve counted
the murdered, those murdered, still more, murdered.’

In ‘Francis Trace’, Lawrence Scott’s reminiscences are conversationally addressed to Earl Lovelace:

‘I think how the years have passed now
since Jenny and I first drove up the coast
to visit you and Jean and the children, how
the country opened up for us…’
             ‘…We hold time in words.’ 

Similarly, in ‘Full Moon Over Laventille’, to a sick friend: 

‘… thought of you, that it was a sign
of wholeness and fullness…’
‘…circling the earth, a full moon over Laventille.’

‘Mayaro Love’ looks at the gift of an enduring love despite past doubts:

‘I bring you nothing on this special day…’

                                      ‘…Dark horizons
now are merely weather. But this no-thing
is what I bring, stealing the O from love.’ 

Scott writes about Jenny with much love, poignancy and the recognition of a decades-long relationship that has:

‘…risked farewells before, interludes,
rehearsals for that final departure…’

In Looking For Cazabon, Lawrence Scott offers parts of a personal and emotional narrative, underpinned by his love of landscape and of a painter who only wanted to paint the light. 

https://www.papillotepress.co.uk/looking-for-cazabon/

Nicole-Rachelle Moore

Nicole-Rachelle Moore is a writer and educator