Montreal writer, educator and community activist Horace I. Goddard had a commitment to community first nurtured in Barbados. Photo Copyright © 2020 by Kola.
HORACE I. GODDARD was to many a well-regarded Montreal writer. Among his books were the novel Child of the Jaguar Spirit (2009) and The Long Drums (1986), a poetry collection. His short story “In the Light of Darkness” appeared in Beyond Sangre Grande: Caribbean Writing Today (2011), edited by Cyril Dabydeen.
Born in Barbados February 10, 1947, Horace immigrated to Canada in 1969, settling in Quebec. His themes deal with migration, the struggle for inclusion and belonging in the Canadian mosaic, and the search for “home.” He passed away November 20, 2020, aged 72.
When I think of Horace, who in different days, before declining health and COVID-19, might be in Barbados right now for Emancipation Day, reconnecting, I think fondly and with nuff respect of rituals, friendship, and the experience of elders. Of a commitment to writing, to storytelling, to passing on and lifting up. I remember light, Caribbean sunlight, and the man I sat with to share a meal and catch-up time, to talk with whenever I was in Montreal visiting my family or he in Barbados with his wife, Pat, at his family hangout in Parish Land. Guidance. I miss and will continue to miss a man who was a powerful community figure when I was growing up as a boy—eight years old, if that!—and eventually a colleague who made me laugh, humbly and gratefully, at stories, some wayward and hard-ears, of his youth, loves, children, fears, teaching, travels, and faith. A man who minded his health, at least later in life, and reached out to me (among so many others) to help with Kola by drafting me into service: first by invitation-reminder to submit work, then by asking me to write editorials. Again, I was humbled by and grateful for our evolving association, this late-in-life discovery for us both of the unanticipated aspects of someone long known.
Horace’s writing resonates in particular with many in the African Diaspora. “I have enjoyed some critical success,” he once said to me, notably for his scholarly essays on Commonwealth writers. But it is his work as literary journal editor and teacher of African-Canadian Literature that forms a singular contribution.
Horace was the editor of Kola: A Black Literary Magazine for twenty-nine of its thirty-two (and counting) years of publication. Through his guidance, Kola became Quebec’s preeminent English-language journal featuring literature from the Diaspora. The writings of George Elliott Clarke, Derrilyn E. Morrison, George Boyd, H. Nigel Thomas, Chezia Thompson-Cage, Cecil Abrahams, George Borden, and Blossom Thom, the latest addition to the editorial board, have appeared in its pages.
In fact, the nurturing of dozens of black writers from Quebec and across Canada meant pulling his own pockets to support the magazine over the years. Yet Horace’s goal was to maintain a respectable platform for contributors to reach diverse audiences at home as well as in Africa, Europe and across North America.
Published by The Black Writers’ Guild (Quebec), Kola has found its way into many universities worldwide. “Over the past two decades, I’ve taught Commonwealth Literature at Laval University and Concordia University,” Horace explained to me in a 2018 email exchange. “Many of the students were dealing with Black Literature for the first time through Kola.”
Kola is an example of what a literary journal—a black literary journal—can accomplish in a long, dedicated run, for itself and its community. The publication also has a book publishing arm, Afo Enterprises. A small press, it has launched or furthered the career of black authors in Quebec, among them the previously mentioned Thomas and Abrahams, Anthony Joyette, and Randolph Homer.
The most recent extension of Kola’s cultural outreach has been Logos, a monthly reading series. “I’d say that in Montreal more Blacks are reading works written by members of the community, and the larger community is attending the readings,” Horace once said of the series.
Lectures Logos Readings have brought new voices to the fore, such as Gloria Macher and Aldyth Harrison. The average in-person, pre-pandemic audience was thirty per reading and growing.
If Horace remained unassuming throughout much of Kola’s rise, it may be he recalled the old Bajan proverb that self-praise is no praise. For a number of years, he also volunteered at St Raphael Elementary School, which caters to special-needs students. He taught grades three to six English and mathematics. He did summer school at Dawson College with The Quebec Board of Black Educators. And he wrote, often at night. His retirement—if you could call it that—was one of active duty.
The reason, for Horace, was simple.
“I’d say that my greatest contribution is coaching young people for over thirty-five years,” he said. “Many have gone on to post-graduate studies; others have become teachers and administrators, journalists. Through readings at schools, these students have also developed a love for literature and writing.”
