Vera Bell

Vera Bell or Vera Alberta[1] or Albertha[2] Bell (born 1906; date of death unknown) was a Jamaican poet, short-story writer and playwright.[3][4] Her 1948 poem "Ancestor on the Auction Block" has been anthologized several times[5][6] 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"".[7] 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".[8]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference worldcat-ogog was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Who's who in Jamaica ...: A Biennial Biographical Record Containing Careers of Principal Public Men and Women of Jamaica. 1954. p. 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
  3. ^ "Salute To Jamaica At Brooklyn Center This Saturday". Canarsie Courier. Retrieved 3 December 2016.
  4. ^ Ferracane, Kathleen Kelley (1999). "Biographies". Caribbean Panorama: An Anthology from and about the English-speaking Caribbean with Introduction, Study Questions, Biographies, and Suggestions for Further Reading. La Editorial, UPR. p. 241. ISBN 9780847703210. Retrieved 3 December 2016.
  5. ^ Ferracane, Kathleen Kelley (1999). "Ancestor on the Auction Block by Vera Bell". Caribbean Panorama: An Anthology from and about the English-speaking Caribbean with Introduction, Study Questions, Biographies, and Suggestions for Further Reading. La Editorial, UPR. pp. 87–89. ISBN 9780847703210. Retrieved 3 December 2016. Note: Includes full text of poem
  6. ^ Donnell, Alison; Welsh, Sarah Lawson (1996). The Routledge Reader in Caribbean Literature. Psychology Press. pp. 155–156. ISBN 9780415120487. Retrieved 3 December 2016.
  7. ^ Evaristo, Bernardine (3 December 2005). "Hurricanes' Roar". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 December 2016.
  8. ^ Breiner, Laurence A. (1998). An Introduction to West Indian Poetry. Cambridge UP. p. 163. ISBN 9780521587129.