Sunday Funday Naukabout

oh perfect thank you this is that live hot mic situation they can't see us but they can hear us all right everybody we're getting the live stream up and running we've got jarita Davis that's going to be joining us and I'm super excited to hear all the things she has to say today all right we're here live at knockabout what saraphina and I were in a entrepreneurial book club where Stephanie never read the right book and Stephanie was terrible at this book I really Su at book club I did not fabulous I'm what I just had a visual I just had a visual had a proud of it Hello everybody welcome into Sunday Funday here at knockabout my guest today jarita Davis thank you so much for answering the call sure thank you for having me on your show Sarah Murphy I said I put out on this live because you never know what you're going to get Welcome to our Sunday Funday here at knockabout uh this week is books and bites and we love having a local author if you know somebody that is creating some amazing things whether it's poetry whether it's short stories whether it's full-on books whether it's sagas we've got them coming to you and I'm really excited to promote local authors because not everybody is published not everybody is in bookstores and if you are looking for local authors at your local bookstore please ask them where they are they need to be put out there so jarita maybe you can tell everybody a little bit about yourself sure and uh all all the fabulousness that you are oh um My Name is jarita Davis I live in falou I do have a book out and bookstore so I am in fact published yes I have a collection of poems called return flights and it's published by Tas press you can get that wherever books are sold you can order it online through Amazon if you want or directly from the publisher and then recently I've been included in a uh anthology of poetry by black poets called This is the honey and uh quame Alexander is the editor for that collection it's a beautiful collection um so I encourage everyone to run out and get it if they can that was actually sold out on Amazon after the that's exciting four days yeah so kame Alexander has a lot of yeah he our live studio audience absolutely clap holler live audience here um yeah he's well known enough to go on like NPR to promote and he was on step kar's television Night Show and so he got a lot of uh publicity Nationwide you and I were talking candidly before you had come here obviously we did have a conversation it wasn't like Dorita show up and she's like all right uh but you're were saying how like we were talking about object of motion stays in motion about how you've been kind of quiet on the scene for a while right and then all of a sudden here you are right so there's definitely some momentum that's been building I have done a lot of poetry readings on the cap previously but it's been couple years since I've been out and about and then now you know there was a reading in Boston I did on February 1 and then I think it was the 10th in Woods Hole and now this and so I keep getting calls uh it's like people have remembered that I'm a writer so well you know what you put yourself out there which is so hard to do when you're in your kind of Cocoon of writing maybe you can talk about the process a little bit for you so the process for me is um trying um I would say the best the process for me is to just write a whole bunch of garbage and then go back later and read it and see if there's anything that's like oh this looks interesting or maybe there's a mining for nuggets I used to say like oh you know look for the gems but sometimes they're not even gems it's just like little glimmers and you're like that could be something and so you go back and you find um you know and you I would say cut out the rest but really sometimes it's just finding these little like turns of phrases or ideas or something that Sparks and then you can work from there so that's usually what and then once you've got something to fix you just keep revising it and revising it and revising it over and over again maybe you can talk about your experience in your education I know that you've got quite a pedigree yes um that's true I have a bachelor's in Classics from Brown University so I was a big Latin and ancient Greek nerd for many years and then was actually kind of Bound for grad school in the classics it's such a good area of Providence though I grew up in adabor so I just like that was our place yeah Providence has come from when I was there when I first started I was like oh God and now I'm like oh wow yeah this is a really great it's a nice Melting Pot it's like a small Melting Pot has a think a very real artistic vibe there and maybe it's you know Ry students who have stuck around or I don't know there's something there that just feels really vibrant in a I love that their campuses are like right there with each other so you get that experience of being at Art School while being in real Academia you can take classes at either University so students and like my Italian studies class and then I had I took some photography classes at rhod Rhode Island School design very neat so it's a nice crossover right there totally good morning Kora Denise yes we are at knockabout here and Dorita will be here for a little bit longer if you want to come and meet her and talk to her about any of her uh writings please do so we'll be here for a bit and uh D is goingon to read us a short story yes yes this has never been read aloud yes so this is completely fresh I've workshopped it but um I've only had people sort of read it on their own and give me feedback I haven't really heard it out loud in front of in front of a live audience like this um so uh okay so it's set in it's set in Brava which is the smallest island on the cape for islands and it's based well it's inspired by me not based it's inspired by a true story well you were there right yes yes so while I was on the island of Brava I saw a um like a plaque sort of a memorial little almost Monument was very small but it was for the folks who had been on this ship called the Matilda and so in like 1943 there was a ship that was going from Bravo to the United States and there's sort of like a little anecdote of what what is known about what happened for the people on this ship and so I took that and ran with it and tried to write the backstory a little so I'm just going to jump right in sure um I want our camera guy uh to help me with this so that I need to be watching you on camera I want to give you the full camera no problem I know right perfect we're ready okay great um so the title is the curse of the Matilda there was a boy he lived in a small house in a small village on the small island of braa with his mother and grandmother the boy's mother was going to have a baby the boy's father had come home for Christmas but he went back to America to work this time his father didn't say be good or listen to your mother when he left this time he said to the boy he said the boy was the man of the house when the father was away his father told him to look out for his mother and grandmother and he gave him a handshake not a hug that was 6 months ago the day after his 12th birthday there weren't many men left in the village old V was not his grandfather but everyone in the village called him V because he was like a grandfather to all of them there were some men visiting their families on the island the way his father did a few months ago but now they are all going back to America on the Matilda the first day the Matilda docked at the harbor in Forno the boy stood on a cliff nearby and watched from above it didn't seem very big and the men who walked by or got on the ship looked looked tiny the ship was a perfect white new thing next to the gray Rocky Harbor it looked like a child's toy boat the next day the boy finished his chores quickly so that he could go down to the dock he fed a handful of grain to their three chickens pecking in the dust it hadn't rained yet that summer so he watered the dirt where he planted seeds last month last summer it only rained once but this year might be better he went down to Forno to look at the Matilda but there it was too big to see all at once while standing next to it and up close the ship didn't gleam the way it had from the cliff it was patched and scuffed and the white paint was chipped it was a ship made rough from hard times at Sea the men were busy hammering things and collecting things and carrying them on and off the ship none of them talked to the boy so he went home the third day he heard the older boys in the village talking about Matilda they were going to go to America too they were going to make money the way their uncles and brothers and fathers made money by leaving home they said they were not going to stay on the island like women the young boy asked if they all left who would take care of the women his mother and grandmother needed him and he was the only man at home to protect them the older boys laughed protect them from what what big man they asked those skinny goats tied behind your house but the boy's mother was pregnant and if he wasn't there then who would run for help if she needed it right away his grandmother couldn't and he could run faster than any other boy at school when the boy went home he started to tell his mother and grandmother about the ship at the dock but they told him to go back inside so he wouldn't get in their way do you need me to get some salt Grandma he asked or should I go down to the spring and bring up more water for the house no no she pinched his chin playfully just go outside your mother and I are talking don't you see his grandmother and mother turned from him and spoke very quietly and quickly the boy went for a walk he visited with v v was mending a torn fishing net the boy sat next to him and Drew dirt in this uh Drew in the dirt with a stick he drew a square a circle a triangle and then a star he drew them all on top of each other until the dirt looked like a patch of lines then the boy smoothed all of the lines over with the bottom of his foot the boy said I'm going to see my father the net sat in V's lap and he held a Fray end with one hand I'm going on the Matilda the boy said when it reaches America I'll find my father and work with him we need to send more money to Mama for the new baby B's Brown hands were Broad and dry the left hand was missing two middle fingers he used his right hand to unspool new twine boy V said without looking up from his net do not go the boy stabbed the stick in the dirt and made dull circles in the dust there's nothing here the boy said not in the village not on the whole island the other boys are going why should I stay here V put the school down and looked at the boy his eyes were milky and clouded but he could see we are here BBE said your mother and grandmother are here and soon you'll be a big brother stay here with us when the other boys go then you will be the oldest on the island all these younger ones will look to you eh that's something the boy did not think that this was something he threw his stick away and it swung in an awkward Circle almost parallel to the ground it fell into a dry shrub you're still too young they said if all the boys go at once there will be no one left to make the next trip go later when you're stronger they they picked up the fishing net again and continued tying knots with his eight deaf fingers the boy went back to the dock a day later and stopped one of the men who was working when does the Matilda sail he asked in 2 days the man said when we finish the repairs and load all the cargo does your mother have a letter for us to bring to your father the boy held his head higher looked into the man's dark face and said I can bring that myself I'm going to join my father in America the man laughed oh no no he said you're much too young to come with us the captain would never allow it the man rubbed the boy's soft woolly head and said go on now you'll get hurt standing here when he got home his mother and grandmother were still talking about the baby the boy was sure that this baby would be a girl too and that soon he and V would be the only man left on the island when the day came for the Matilda to sail the boy went back down to fno it was noisy at the Docks and none of the men seemed to notice him they shouted to each other and threw the Rope down from the deck and carried enormous barrels of food for their Journey the women they were leaving behind were there too the mothers and wives and daughters they all said goodby and cried they hugged the men first and then each other it was easy for the boy to sneak on board he walked on the gang plank in a group of men and no one seemed to even notice him he hid in the Hall of the ship with barrels of food and boxes of things to be brought to America the ship rocked in its place at the do and the boy heard shouts from outside he heard footsteps knock overhead and the heavy thk of things dropped and thrown on Deck he would stay there as long as he could he would not go on Deck until the ship was too far out to sea for the men to turn back he had some food saved from breakfast an old letter with his father's address in America and some extra clothes in a small Satchel he would use the Satchel for a pillow when he slept now the boat was moving the footsteps overhead were more deliberate and regular his mother and grandmother would not look for him until dinner time and when he finally came out on Deck the men would be so surprised that he had fooled them they would see how smart he was and he would show them how much he could help once they were out at Sea he would help man the sails if they wanted and they would be happy that he had come along the boy would find his father at the address on the envelope and be happy to see him in America America he would tell the boy all about his time there and the boy could tell him how he had taken Good Care of Mama and Grandma the father would find the boy work and they would send a letter back to braa that explained everything and had twice as much money the boy crouched in the hole for a long time and was sure no one would come down and see him then he got bored and his legs hurt from sitting in the same position for so long he moved from behind the potato sacks and stood up between the huge barrels his feet were cold on the floor of the ship after a moment he realized they were cold and wet he looked at the floorboards and the bottom of the barrels and saw they were wet too the boy looked at each Barrel to see which one was leaking then he saw the problem the water was coming from the side of the boat he felt a spot where the wood was damp and water was soaking through he took a shirt from his bag to mop up some of the water water but that didn't work there was more and more water and soon the shirt was completely soaked then even more water pulled around the shirt he looked for a hole or something he could plug up to stop the leak but he couldn't see where the water came from he didn't know how to stop it he couldn't fix the leak an adult would know how to fix the leak but he was not an adult he was not an adult and the boy realized he should not be on that ship the boy looked for a new place to hide Far from the opposite side of the leak there was were some barrels and cargo but nothing was as good as a hiding place he had before the men were going to find him and he was going to be in a lot of trouble he had to get away before anyone found him the boy quickly crept up to the deck and saw a man yelling at one of the older boys who had teased him in the village the older boy had broken something and the man was very angry the boy looked for someone else to tell about the leak but everyone was watching the angry man boy looked back at the island and could still see the land at a distance it was so far away that he couldn't see if anyone was still there waving he looked behind him to make sure no one on the boat was watching and then climbed over the side of the deck he slipped into the water hoping not to make too much noise his body plunged beneath the surface and then there was no sound at all he was stunned by the cold the water stopped the boy in an icy hold the boy pushed himself back up to the surface as fast as he could and he gasped for air he opened his mouth to breathe too soon and came up sputtering and choking on saltwater he panicked for a moment and even with his head above the water he still couldn't breathe he coughed and coughed and turned around in the water the salt water burned his eyes and he couldn't see which way there was land then he could see the boat and swam away from it as hard as he could he swam for a long time he could see the shore now but it didn't seem like he was getting closer he swam hard but it felt like the ocean was pushing back against him back further and further from the land when his legs and arms were too tired to swim he tread water for a few moments breathe as much as he could and then swam again but not as fast he wasn't as good of a sweater swimmer as he was a runner there was another boy in his village who was a better swimmer but that boy wasn't here now and he wasn't racing against him he tried to get a little closer to shore with each Kick of his leg and reach of his arm he pushed hard with each stroke he thought about how easily the wood gave beneath his fingers oh I lost thought how easily his I completely lost my spot oh no he thought about how easily the wood gave beneath his fingers at The Damp spot where the water leaked into the boat and he swam harder he wished he had never snuck aboard the Matilda he wished he was at V's house listening to the old man's stories about when he was a young boy the land still didn't look much closer but the ship behind him was further away he took a few deep breaths and then continued towards the shore he thought only about his legs and his arms pushing the water and about trying to breathe at the right times finally the boy felt rocks scrape his feet and soon he could touch the bottom his wet clothes were heavy but he pulled himself up onto a large black Boulder close to the dock his arms and legs were rubbery and his teeth chattered he looked out at the far end of the water and could see a speck that he knew was the Matilda it was a perfect white thing again in the distance right along the line where the sun was sinking but now he knew it wasn't a toy his salty clothes dried against his skin and the boy thought how he'd never join with those older boys from the village who left for America he knew now why those women cried when they hugged the men goodbye at the dock and he cried too some of those men were friends of his father maybe none of them would make it to him America now he didn't know he watched Matilda until it slipped past the Horizon along with the sun there was a lot he didn't know I'm a little sad because I know that that ship sank yeah that's a true story right yes charita Davis everyone thank you so much for sharing this I'm like a little Misty my Portuguese Fisher girl in me yeah right yeah absolutely what I heard from that also is listen to your family yeah school vacation week all I'm saying moms and dads are out there right now going yep absolutely listen to that story that's a good one uh jarita Davis the curse of the Matilda I'm really excited to see more stuff from you and uh we'll definitely be watching all this fabulousness right in Falmouth we're at knockabout you can still swing by and grab yourself a beverage they've got a full list of activities all week long for school vacation week so if you find yourself losing your mind bring the kids here let them run around have a good time Robbie's ready for it uh I've got some hard tea I'm trying here and they have the best fruit beer in town I'm telling you what come on by 13 Lake AB in Mash P we got a Full Slate of shows for you this week we're going to be back at the college with some of the students over at Four Seas uh Monday we're going to be talking to Troy who is a promoter of All Things Music and Art within our community so that'll be on Monday show Tuesday we've got Hank before he ships off to Florida good for you just showing me the resort photos that's the last thing you want to see when you're having everybody else's vacation to live vicariously through them as you can see there's snow on the ground here at Mash Bay I'm really excited and thank you so much for sharing yourself with us than for giving me a place to share it I appreciate it all right we'll talk to you uh tomorrow on the show bye everyone