Vera Bell
{{Short description|Jamaican writer}}
Vera Bell or Vera Alberta or Albertha{{cite book|title=Who's who in Jamaica ...: A Biennial Biographical Record Containing Careers of Principal Public Men and Women of Jamaica|date=1954 | page=46}} "BELL, Vera Albertha, Journalist & Author: Chief Clerk, Engineering Dept. ... Publications: Several short stories, poems & plays, including the Pantomime 'Soliday and the Wicked Bird', 1943;" is visible in Google search results for "vera bell religious poems" but not accessible in the "snippet view" displayed in Google Books Bell (born 1906; date of death unknown) was a Jamaican poet, short-story writer and playwright.{{cite web | title=Salute To Jamaica At Brooklyn Center This Saturday |work=Canarsie Courier | url=http://www.canarsiecourier.com/common/common/Arts_Entertainment/37.html | access-date=3 December 2016}}{{cite book | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cE-tuAkFLbkC&q=%22vera+bell%22+jamaica&pg=PA241 | page=241 | title= Caribbean Panorama: An Anthology from and about the English-speaking Caribbean with Introduction, Study Questions, Biographies, and Suggestions for Further Reading |last=Ferracane | first=Kathleen Kelley | isbn=9780847703210| date=1999 | publisher= La Editorial, UPR|access-date=3 December 2016 | chapter=Biographies }} Her 1948 poem "Ancestor on the Auction Block" has been anthologized several times{{cite book | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cE-tuAkFLbkC&q=%22vera+bell%22++&pg=PA87 | pages=87–89 | title= Caribbean Panorama: An Anthology from and about the English-speaking Caribbean with Introduction, Study Questions, Biographies, and Suggestions for Further Reading |last=Ferracane | first=Kathleen Kelley | isbn=9780847703210| date=1999 | publisher= La Editorial, UPR|access-date=3 December 2016 | chapter=Ancestor on the Auction Block by Vera Bell}} Note: Includes full text of poem{{cite book|last1=Donnell|first1=Alison|author-link1=Alison Donnell|last2=Welsh|first2=Sarah Lawson|title=The Routledge Reader in Caribbean Literature|date=1996|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=9780415120487|pages=155–156|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tlulw5fg2zIC&q=%22vera+bell%22+poems&pg=PA155|access-date=3 December 2016}} although a 2005 review of The Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse says "some of the earlier poems survive only as amusing museum pieces, such as Vera Bell's 'Ancestor on the Auction Block'."{{cite news|last1=Evaristo|first1=Bernardine|author-link=Bernardine Evaristo|title=Hurricanes' Roar|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/dec/03/featuresreviews.guardianreview20|access-date=3 December 2016|work=The Guardian|date=3 December 2005}} The poem is described by Laurence A. Breiner in his An Introduction to West Indian Poetry (1998) as "a poem whose crux is the poet's troubled relation to the poet's ancestral subject/object", and Breiner cites George Lamming as placing the poem "squarely at a liminal moment in the process of establishing contact with a previously objectified or fetishized Other".{{cite book|last1=Breiner|first1=Laurence A.|title=An Introduction to West Indian Poetry|date=1998|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780521587129|page=163|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JgPCIWKRiGEC&q=%22vera+bell%22&pg=PA163}}
Life
Bell was born in Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica, and educated at Wolmer's Girls' School.{{cite book | last=Hughes | first=Michael | title=A Companion to West Indian Literature | date=1979}} Information seen in Google search results display for "ogog vera bell" but not visible in the "snippet view" available in Google Books. She worked in welfare after leaving school, and then studied at Columbia University and London University.
Bell's 1943 Soliday and the Wicked Bird, staged by the Little Theatre Movement of Jamaica, has been described as "the first original Jamaican pantomime".{{cite book|last1=Chambers|first1=Colin|title=Continuum Companion to Twentieth Century Theatre|date=2006|publisher=A&C Black|isbn=9781847140012|page=135|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cFlFhuVMFGQC&q=vera+bell+&pg=PA135|access-date=3 December 2016}}
Bell had a number of short stories published in the political weekly Public Opinion and the Jamaican little magazine FOCUS, edited by Edna Manley. ‘The Bamboo Pipe’ and ‘Joshua,’ were also included in two early edited volumes of short fiction: 14 Jamaican Short Stories (1950) and Caribbean Anthology of Short Stories (1953) respectively – both part of The Gleaner’s mid-century book publishing series, The Pioneer Press, which Una Marson initially proposed and edited.
In 1971 she published Ogog (Vantage Press, New York), described as "An uncommon verse novel charting the rise of a primitive".{{cite book|title=Catalogue record for "Ogog"|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/18583481|publisher=Worldcat|oclc = 18583481|access-date=3 December 2016}}{{cite web|title=Ogog|url=http://antiqbook.co.uk/boox/clearw/BC12323.shtml|website=Antiqbook|access-date=3 December 2016}}
A writer in the Journal of West Indian Literature in 1989 said: "Vera Bell, for example, is known for a single much-discussed poem, "Ancestor on the Auction Block" (no one knows her book-length Ogog)."{{cite journal|title=Unknown|journal=Journal of West Indian Literature|date=1989|volume=3-4|page=11}} Information seen in Google search results display for "ogog vera bell" but not visible in the "snippet view" available in Google Books.
Bell's "Death of a comrade" was included in the 1989 West Indian Poetry: An Anthology for Schools edited by Kenneth Ramchand and Cecil Gray.{{cite book|last1=Ramchand|first1=Ken|last2=Gray|first2=Cecil|title=West Indian Poetry: An Anthology for Schools|date=1989|publisher=Longman Caribbean|isbn=9780582766372|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HPYfAQAAIAAJ|chapter=Contents}}
In 1981-1982 a 30-minute programme about Bell was broadcast in the series First person feminine on WOI-FM Radio, Ames, Iowa, United States and recorded on audiocassette by the Iowa State University Media Resources Center.{{cite book|title=Catalogue record for "First person feminine: Second series"|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/80689735|publisher=Worldcat| oclc=80689735 |access-date=3 December 2016}}
The Vera Bell Prize for Poetry, part of the Young Black Writers Awards, was won in 1985 by Maud Sulter for her work As a Blackwoman.{{cite web|title=Maud Sulter (1960 - 2008)|url=http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/poets/maud-sulter|publisher=Scottish Poetry Library|access-date=3 December 2016}}
Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller ended her 1 August 2014 Emancipation Day Message with the words "Poet Vera Bell’s words ring true:" and excerpts from "Ancestor on the Auction Block" ending with its last line "Mine be the task to build.", adding "Build we can… build we must… build we shall! This is Jamaica, our Jamaica, Land we love. I thank you."{{cite web|last1=OPM Communications Unit|title=Emancipation Day Message 2014 by Prime Minister the Most Hon. Portia Simpson Miller|url=http://jis.gov.jm/emancipation-day-message-2014-prime-minister-hon-portia-simpson-miller-2/|publisher=Jamaican Information Service|access-date=3 December 2016}}
Bell was said to be living in England in 1999.
Bell's daughter Patsy was married to Gerry German (1928–2012), headmaster of Manchester High School in Mandeville, Jamaica, and a political activist.{{cite web|last1=Girvan|first1=Norman|author-link=Norman Girvan|title=Tribute to Gerry German|url=http://georgepadmoreinstitute.org/tribute-gerry-german-norman-girvan|publisher=George Padmore Institute|access-date=3 December 2016|archive-date=16 July 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190716144048/https://www.georgepadmoreinstitute.org/tribute-gerry-german-norman-girvan|url-status=dead}}John, Gus, [http://www.irr.org.uk/news/gerry-german-1928-2012/ "Gerry German, 1928–2012"], Institute of Race Relations, 3 May 2012.
References
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Category:Year of death missing
Category:20th-century Jamaican poets
Category:Columbia University alumni