Thomas MacDermot

For those of a similar name, see Thomas McDermott.

Thomas MacDermot
Born26 June 1870
Clarendon Parish, Colony of Jamaica, British Empire
Died8 October 1933
Occupation(s)poet, novelist, and editor

Thomas MacDermot (26 June 1870[1] – 8 October 1933)[2] was a Jamaican poet, novelist, and editor, editing the Jamaica Times for more than 20 years. He was "probably the first Jamaican writer to assert the claim of the West Indies to a distinctive place within English-speaking culture".[3] He also published under the pseudonym Tom Redcam (derived from his surname spelled in reverse).[4] He was Jamaica's first Poet Laureate.

Early life

Thomas Henry MacDermot was born in Clarendon Parish, Jamaica, the third of five children,[5] and spent much of his childhood in Trelawny.[2] He was educated at the Falmouth Academy and at the Church of England Grammar School in Kingston, Jamaica.[4]

Career

He was a teacher before taking up journalism, at The Jamaica Post, The Daily Gleaner and the Jamaica Times, of which he was editor for 20 years.[4] He worked to promote Jamaican literature through all of his writing, starting a weekly short story contest in the Jamaica Times in 1899. Notable among the young writers he helped and encouraged are Claude McKay[3] and H. G. de Lisser.[4]

In 1903, MacDermot started the All Jamaica Library, a series of novellas and short stories written by Jamaicans about Jamaica that were reasonably priced to encourage local readers.[6] Alongside his work as a journalist, he wrote two novels. The first, Becka’s Buckra Baby, is said to mark the beginning of modern Caribbean writing.[7] MacDermot's poems were not collected into a single volume until 1951. He was posthumously proclaimed Jamaica's first Poet Laureate for the period 1910–33 by the Jamaican branch of the Poetry League.[3]

MacDermot retired because of illness in 1922.

Death

He died in an English nursing home in 1933, aged 63.[3]

Bibliography

  • Becka's Buckra Baby (1903), Times Printery, Jamaica.
  • One Brown Girl And ¼ (1909), Times Printery, Jamaica.
  • Orange Valley and Other Poems (1951), Kingston, Jamaica: Pioneer Press.

References

  1. ^ "Margaret Mary MacDermot and Thomas Henry MacDermot", de bene esse, 17 April 2013.
  2. ^ a b Mervyn Morris, "Poet Laureate Remarks at Investiture Ceremony, King’s House, 21 May 2014".
  3. ^ a b c d Michael Hughes, A Companion to West Indian Literature, Collins, 1979, p. 75.
  4. ^ a b c d "Redcam, Tom (1870-1933)", Eugene Benson and L. W. Conolly (eds), Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English, Routledge (1994), 2nd edition 2005, p. 1338.
  5. ^ [1]. "Remembering Tom Redcam: Jamaica’s first Poet Laureate" National Library of Jamaica, 26 June 2017
  6. ^ Pat Dunn and Pamela Mordecai, "All Jamaica Library", in Daniel Balderston, Mike Gonzalez, Ana M. Lopez (eds), Encyclopedia of Contemporary Latin American and Caribbean Cultures, Routledge, 2000, p. 53.
  7. ^ "Caribbean Literature", Alexandra Street Press.