SOUL ROASTED LIKE CASHEWS...

“Bim(shire’s) best,” someone said. “Madness!” said the rest.  The level lands of Barbados hide no one. You must take a stand. You forgot the good fight at CowPastor though the planes rain down their tourists in the national interests on your head. You remain the one, the living fighting "I"; they counted you as no more. A life lived in the trenches. A soul roasted like cashews upon a pan resting on the blackened stones. A mind without rest, tested at every turn and pressured to buckle for titled rewards.

Now you are in sight of this century. In reach of this boundary; just short by "five fours" to be scored. The battle finds the batsman head down with resolve.

—from the Foreword, In Celebration of Kamau Brathwaite, BIM: Arts for the 21st Century, Vol 4, No. 1 (November 2010-March 2011)

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HILARY BECKLES is Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West Indies.  He has authored and edited many books on West Indies cricket history and culture, including The Development of West Indies Cricket: Volume 1, The Age of Nationalism and Volume 2: The Age of Globalisation (1999).