The Clarke of Trinidad… a creative powerhouse

IF anyone knows Ọgbẹni Arẹgbẹṣọla, please tell him that “once is not enough.” 

In case he does not get the essence of the message, please say it in the language of people we call abinibi; let him know that the visit to Trinidad & Tobago calls for lẹẹkansi (that is one more time).

The lineup of places to visit when he agrees must be within the creative empire of Chief LeRoy Clarke. 

LeRoy Clarke?

Yes, the painter-philosopher who is the Chief of the Tribe of One! As you will soon discover, textual lines do not adequately paint a picture of a multi-talented artist, writer, visionary and historian of his people. 

Where does one start to talk about an old man who is a combination of Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, when it comes to the spoken word and a Bruce Onabrakpeya in terms of innovative works of art? Yet those two spirits in the pantheon of creativity will still need the fighting spirit of a John Pepper-Clark to complete the picture.

Moreover, Nigerians reading this piece may find it difficult to appreciate that one man could be the confluence of such creative abilities and potentials. A few months before the chief arrived in this world the British launched an August 1938 Royal Commission under the leadership of Lord Moyne to investigate and make recommendations on the social and economic life of the British West Indian Colonies; and not unknown to the chief is that riots and uprising in Trinidad and Tobago preceded his birth. 

THE Chief of One was born 1938 on Monday the 7^th day of month of November to be precise.  He is not a lot younger than the three men mentioned above but everyone who encounters the chief knows he is an old soul. One whose eyes are focused on today, with his ability to see the past legendary. He is the first writer I have encountered who transposed the pronoun ‘I’ for the sense organ eye. To him it is the eye and not his person that interacts with the other. 

 In addition, since this is an online portrait, I am at liberty to take materials in the semi-public domain to buttress my point about the Chief of the Tribe of One!

One day, a retired commander in the United States Army, who also holds a Doctorate in Business Administration, visited the Chief. In the text below you will glean, the impact that visit had on the trained warrior. 

“I am a scientist and engineer by training and inclination. That is how my mind works. For most of my adult life, I have also been a warrior by training. My understanding of art in general, and abstract art in particular, is limited. But I understand resonance on many different planes; physical, emotional, and spiritual. What I saw on our visit resonated with me on both emotional and spiritual levels. I was also very much aware that I was very much in the presence of true genius. This fact was obvious to me. What I understood to be a visit to a great artist’s home was far deeper, broader, and richer than I could have possibly imagined a prioi. To have access to, and the gift of, your portfolios was unexpectedly generous. Once my fiancé, Alicia, and I establish our home together and have the opportunity to have them framed, you may be assured these pictures will be displayed prominently. 

“I would be greatly blessed to open a dialog, if you are so inclined. I know you are fully occupied with your art, the transmission of your philosophic view of life, and those around you. But, if it is of interest to communicate with an “ol’ bald, fat, white guy” who is making every effort to expand his view of the world and his understanding of the profoundly diverse, inclusive world around him, I would be greatly honored. With deepest respect.”

THE sentiments expressed in the slightly edited email above is not atypical. Yours sincerely can attest to the spirit and letter contained therein.

When I could not find the appropriate combination of sentences, I opted for these few lines: 

His art, cryptic

His poems of the depth

His prose, sharper that two-edged swords

that cuts readers from their lethargy

by letting them reason above the physical….

Adulation for the chief comes in all forms of expressions. There is a book of his, Parables, that has been in the pipelines for a while. The writer, Lennox Raphael, a longtime friend of his, looked at it and sent these words from Denmark, written, he says, around 1:30 am November 11^, 2011.

This was then shared by the Chief with a select number of his admirers. 

“…PARABLES is a masterful collection of your voice, your view of my life too, our allnesses, our apartness, desire flawed & in motion, the trembling assemblies of spirits haunted by unfulfilled graveyards, Leroy Clarke, visionary, victim of love, myself, I see my selves in your every line, a space decline, aloes & balata, avocadian mangoes, & the tears & joyless joyfulness of all those Ovidian Laventilles ripe for the picking of Time. There is Trinidad; something here for everyone, a group of messages between the lines of least resistance to Truth. I salute you on the mourning ground with tales of Desire, discover for everyone & for myself, my lone self, the happiness that is love, that we desire, that is here, having only to grasp God, by whatever God or Krishna or mythological indulgences, to seize the chimes & swing not in the breeze of greed.

“You, LeRoi, from the hills of Goncalves to the heights of El Tucuche [name of the spiritual mountain edifice from which the Chief operates], a beacon of Light & forgiveness, where Time waits for no excuse & outweighs the scales of human achievement. I salute your simplicity, your divine complicatedness, and wish your picturizations do arouse larger feelings & thoughts & lace our drinks with the holy water of nowness & Being. 

“Trinidad. Trinidad & Tobago. All our peoples. All our dreams & misgivings, & social, environmental miscarriages and our promises, those we keep, those never intended to be kept, the overriding midnight shadows hatched in vallies now come home to roost like stones speaking in tongues.

“The cold inside is the hot inside the cold warmth, the essential resurrections pouiing, policing our dreams, the disappointments that must be turned on their heads & demolished to excellence and, then, what more can I not say to ease the vanity of history, and the greed indeed that is never freed from tears soliloquizing into rocks where prayer rooms are built on fallow ground and the geometric immaculateness of myth in blood, and I am thinking now of that time in Cairo when I climbed down into the bottom pit of the Great Pyramid in Giza and, down there, looked up & saw blue sky & stars of hope & regeneration and saw Trinidad too, in your work, your life blood floating own the Nile in us as a people traveling beyond Ganges shadows. Alas!, as Time goes by, the Future stands still; and the Ecclesiastes of our soul is deafening. 

“Small, white stones repel evil spirits. Time for Truth to get down from its palanquin & touch the ground. Trinidad & Tobago, space of all the Gods, all the world spirits, a land without boundaries, bountiful pleasures & promise, hurting from Neglect, from neglect of Self & spirit, yet light shining always thru the crevices we allow, and those that push themselves thru a fractured modernity, I am all of this too, equally to blame & love & be washed in the blood of metaphors, and I salute you, child of history inside painted monuments of spiritual fat pork & caimitian sapodillas falling free to the earth you have so well ploughed to receive meaning as a denial of excuses.

“What more can I say as feelings erupt too from icy mourning ground to dust, the inheritance of possibilities.

Thanks again, there is yet time for the feeling & healing & baptism of Joy. I don’t want to say anything after this. Let the smart me smile latter dreams to wash down reality. Your sentiments last in the shoes of the fisherman.”  

“There is no way you must have missed the line about stones speaking in tongues. The poetry and prose of the Chief of one speaks even to hearts of stone. Please do not take my words as the gospel truth. Elders say it is in the mouth of the aged that kola nuts mature. Lennox is a peer of the Chief and he can speak from his heart about the Chief’s art. 

“Leroy,

your work shines

with multiversal light of Life

inner lasting now tomorrow

Keep the fate

Pleasure & Inspiration

HOW can I end this very brief portrait without splashing the words of the Chief himself on your screen? 

Your notes this morning have served to convince me that there are folks who manage to share with me the value of friendship that is yet under the siege of indifference… How sad does that state affect me directly! Eye am not sure, but, eye am not at peace, no matter my dedication to a work eye deem the imperative of my being! 

                                                      All eye do is geared to a vocation that enshrines the highest values that are geared towards what is infinitely bound with god… Let us help each other to venture thus, but with fairness and hope we know to be authored by god, and which is glimpsed in the friendship we now share!

                                                     May god continue to bless us, in the friendship we are signaled to observe, and cherish  – an inspiration to others who are less fortunate!  May god continue to bless us, and the work we endeavor the best with which we are blessed!

God bless you and family! Chief leroy…  Please allow me the liberty to share this with a few friends who also inspire me to answer the call, bestowed!

Blessings ever… Come us…

Chief is saying thanks!  

 IF truths were told, how many can I count in the mythical Adepele’s teeth? I have not even scratched the surface yet the meter counting the number of words warn me that I must have overstayed my welcome on your screens. Should you want more about Pa LeRoy Clarke, write to the editor that this first serving was an appetiser.

I promise you there is still more to come.