Eric Merton Roach, Tobago’s foremost poet

Dr Rita Pemberton

During the first half of the 20th century, the British-colonised Caribbean was in protest mode against the underdeveloped state of the territories. The daily experiences of the mass of the population were like night and day: unemployment or starvation wages while facing sky-rocketing food prices, hunger, abject poverty and squalor, stood in stark contrast to the privileged lifestyle of the colonial agents who were responsible for creaming the resources of the colonies for the benefit of the imperial government.

The local administration headed by governors who represented the monarch showed little empathy for public welfare and the lack of intervention to relieve the situation caused aggravated distress which morphed into a malaise that spread across the region and stimulated confrontational outbursts.

These were expressed in hunger marches, strikes and protests against imperial exploitation and oppression which spread across the region particularly during the 1930s. But a parallel and related development occurred. It was radical, nationalist, anti-colonial and literary.

There occurred a flowering of literary expression as creative thinkers and writers engaged in debates, discussions and wrote articles which explored their past, addressed pertinent issues relating to the state of their countries and projected their creative selves to their communities and the world.

There was an active group in Tobago who contributed to newspapers and engaged in debates and other activity to stimulate the awareness and pro activity in the Tobago population on matters pertaining to Tobago development. This movement led to the establishment of Tobago newspapers, the organisation of essay competition for schools, encouraged West Indian literature and literary appreciation in the population. In light of the current revitalisation of literary creativity and the encouragement of publication which has been stimulated by the Tobago Writers’ Guild, it is important to put focus on one of the island’s most creative literary precursors.

One member of this distinguished group was the multi-talented Eric Merton Roach, who published for nearly 40 years and left a legacy of historical, social and political information about Tobago. Roach has been described as “the most significant poet of the English-speaking Caribbean between Claude McKay and Derek Walcott,” one of the major West Indian poets and a “distinguished writer, poet, playwright and essayist.”

Born in Mt Pleasant, Tobago to peasant farmers, on November 15, 1915, Eric Merton Roach was one of six children. He attended Mt Pleasant Anglican School and Bishop’s High School and served as teacher, public servant, artist and journalist, and as a soldier during World War II.

Roach became fully enmeshed in the intellectual groups that developed in Tobago. As a journalist, he produced voluminous works commenting on politics, race, contemporary issues including controversial topics, but he positioned himself as speaking for the peasants of Tobago.

His first works were published in local newspapers for a local readership and focused on local and regional issues. In 1938 he began as a contributor to the Tobagonian writing on Tobago’s folklore. He devoted his life to the creative and literary arts, writing and directing plays and writing poetry.

While his works are centred on the Tobago experience they are relevant to Trinidad and the wider Caribbean. He took a keen interest in and possessed a sound knowledge of developments in the region. While he lamented the “sabotaged revolution” in Haiti, he adored Toussaint Louverture and expressed the hope that more of his calibre could be produced in the region.

From 1949 to 1958 Roach’s works reached an international audience through the BBC radio programme Caribbean Voice and the Journal Bim, which had an international readership, a visibility he craved since his earlier years.

The decades of the 1950s and 1960s were productive years for Roach. He was a member of the Scarborough Discussion Group which won the Arts Festival trophy under his direction in 1950 and he was also a member of the Ideal Literary and Debating Association in Scarborough. During the 1950s he wrote for The Tobago Herald before joining the staff of the Trinidad Guardian.

Between the years 1952 and 1962 he produced many political poems lamenting the experience of enslavement which obliterated the names, identities and ancestral connections of the enslaved who sweated to support folks in other places, and he expressed hope that out of the experience a liberating civilisation could be carved in the region.

The versatile Roach, competing as Lord Troubador in 1956, won a calypso competition with his composition on the federation. This was a topic about which he felt very strongly because he believed that it was the way forward for the development of the region. He hoped that the Caribbean archipelago could be transformed into one unit and he was very disappointed when the Federation failed. He wrote three plays: Letter for Leanora 1966, Belle Fanto in 1967 and A Calabash of Blood in 1971. Among his most famous pieces are: The Flowering Rock, Ballad of Canga, I am the Archipelago and I Say It Was The Women

In his writings, Roach treats of the present and future with a reflection of the Caribbean past. He wrote of the misfortune of the First People – the hibiscus in his poetry – and the tragic history of the transported people through slave legends and poetic references to the sting of the sun and the whip of the rain. Along with a backward glance he deals with present-day issues. He values education, which allows people to give their island a place in the world, but he is critical of the colonial education he received at the end of which he learned nothing about himself, his country and its history.

It is very interesting that the very issues about which Roach wrote continue to plague the people of the Caribbean. The hope for federation was a failure but a new reshaped integration movement has emerged from the ashes of the federation, indicating that the unity that Roach dreamed of may yet develop.

Despite the passage of time, many of the themes about which Roach wrote continue to plague Tobago and the Caribbean today as decolonisation of minds, economies, education, political, judicial and administrative systems continues to be a major challenge. It is instructive that Roach brought these matters to public attention in his works which constitute Tobago’s literary treasures. With an unmatched record of one hundred and ten poems, Roach is undoubtedly Tobago’s foremost poet.