Una Marson

Una Maud Victoria Marson (5 May 1905 - 1965) was a Jamaican feminist, activist and writer, producing poems, plays and programs for the BBC. Marson traveled to London in 1932 and worked for the BBC during World War II.

Early years 1905-1932

Una Marson was born on February 6, 1905 in Santa Cruz, Jamaica in the parish of St. Elizabeth. She was the youngest of six children of a Reverend Soloman Isaac, who was a Baptist parson, and Ada Marson. Una had a middle class upbringing and was very close with her father, who influenced some of her father-like characters in her later works. As a child before going to school she was an avid reader of available literature, which at the time was mostly English classical literature.

At the age of 10, she was enrolled in Hampton High, a girl's boarding school in Jamaica of which her father was on the board of trustees. However, that same year, Reverend Isaac passed away, leaving the family at a financial loss, so the family moved to Kingston, Jamaica. Una finished school at Hampton High, but did not go on to a college education.
After she graduated from Hampton, she found work in Kingston as a volunteer social worker and used the secretarial skills, such as stenography, she had learned in school.

In 1926, she got a job as assistant editor for the Jamaican political journal Jamaica Critic. Her years at Jamaica Critic taught her journalism skills as well as influenced her political and social opinions and inspired her to create her own publication. In fact, in 1928 she became Jamaica's first female editor and publisher of her own magazine, "The Cosmopolitan". "The Cosmopolitan" featured articles on feminist topics, local social issues, and workers' rights and was aimed at a young, middle class Jamaican audience. Marson's articles encouraged women to join the work force and to become politically active. The magazine also featured Jamaican poetry and literature from Marson's fellow members of the Jamaican Poetry League, started by Clare Macfarlane.

In 1930, Marson published her first collection of poems, entitled "Tropic Reveries" that dealt with love and nature with elements of feminism. It won the Musgrave Medal from the Institute of Jamaica. Her poems about love are somewhat misunderstood by friends and critics, as there is no evidence of a romantic relationship in Marson's life although love continued to be a common topic in her work. In 1931, due to financial difficulties, "The Cosmopolitan" ended publication, which lead her to begin publishing more poetry and plays. In 1931 she published another collection of poetry, entitled Heights and Depths, which also dealt with love and social issues. Also in 1931 she wrote her first play, "At What a Price". The play about a Jamaican girl who moves from the country into the city of Kingston to work as a stenographer and falls in love with her white male boss. It was opened in Jamaica and later London to critical acclaim. In 1932 she decided to go to London to find a broader audience for her work and to experience life outside of Jamaica. [Jarrett-Macauley, "The Life of Una Marson"]

London years (1932-1936)

From 1932 to 1945, Marson moved back and forth from London and Jamaica. In these years, Marson would continue to contribute to politics, but now instead of focusing on writing for magazines, she would write for newspapers and her own literary works in order to get her political ideas across. In these years, Marson will keep writing to advocate feminism, but one of her new emphases will be on the racial issue in England.
Marson first moved to London in 1932. The racism and sexism she met there "transformed both her life and her poetry"; Marson's voice in her poetry became more focused on the identity of black women in England. [Waters, "Una Marson", 204.] In this period then, Marson not only continues to write about women's roles in society, but also puts the issues black people who live in England face into the mix.

In July 1933, Marson wrote a poem called "Nigger", which appeared in The League of Coloured People's journal, The Keys. "Nigger" is one of Marson's more forceful poems in addressing racism in England. However, this poem only saw light seven years later when it was published in 1940.
Outside of her writing at that time, Marson was in the London branch in the International Alliance of Women, which was a global feminist organization. By 1935, she was involved with the International Alliance of Women based in Istanbul.

Jamaica (1936-1938)

Marson returned to Jamaica in 1936, where one of her goals was to promote national literature. One step she took in achieving this goal was that Marson took to further promote national literature was to help create the Kingston Readers and Writers Club, as well as the Kingston Drama Club. She also founded the Jamaica Save the Children Fund, which was an organization that raised funds to give the poorer children money to get a basic education.

In terms of promoting Jamaican literature, she published "Moth and the Star" in 1937. Many poems in that volume demonstrate how despite the media's portrayal that black women have inferior beauty when compared to the whites, black women should still be confident in their own physical beauty. This theme is seen in "Cinema Eyes", "Little Brown Girl", "Black is Fancy", and "Kinky Hair Blues". However, Marson herself was affected by the stereotype of white's superior beauty; Marson herself, her biographer tells us, within months of her arrival in Britain "stopped straightening her hair and went natural". [ Jenkins, "The Language of Caribbean Poetry", 138.]

Going along with her feminist principles, Marson worked with Louise Bennett to create another play called "London Calling", which was about a woman who moved to London to further her education. However, the woman later got homesick and returned to Jamaica. This play shows how the main character is a "strong heroine" for being able to "force herself to return to London" in order to finish her education there. Another thing that Marson did going along with the feminist vein is writing for the Public Opinion, where she wrote for the feminist column.

Marson's third play, "Pocomania", is about a woman named Stella who is looking for an exciting life. Critics suggest that this play is significant because it demonstrates how an "Afro-religious cult" affects middle-class women. [Banham, Hill,Woodyard, "The Cambridge Guide to African and Caribbean Theatre", 212.] "Pocomania" is also one of Marson's most important works because she was able to put the essence of the Jamaican culture into this play. Critics such as Ivy Baxter said that "Pocomania" was a break in tradition because it talked about a cult from the country", and, as such, it represented a turning point in what was acceptable on the stage. [Waters, "Una Marson", 206.]

In 1937, Marson wrote a poem called "Quashie comes to London", which is the perspective of England in a Caribbean narrative. In Caribbean dialect, Quashie means gullible or unsophisticated. Although initially impressed, Quashie becomes disgusted with England because there is not enough good food there. The poem shows how although England has good things to offer, it is Jamaican culture that Quashie misses, and therefore Marson implies how England is supposed to be "the temporary venue for entertainment". [Donnell and Welsh, "The Routledge Reader in Caribbean Literature", 120.] The poem shows how it was possible for a writer to implement Caribbean dialect in a poem, and it is this usage of local dialect that situates Quashie's perspective of England as a Caribbean perspective.

London years (1938-1945)

Marson went back to London in 1938 to continue to work on the Jamaican Save the Children project that she started in Jamaica, and also to be in the staff of the Jamaican Standard. In 1941, she was hired by the BBC Service Empire to work on a program in which World War II soldiers would have their messages read on the radio to their families.

By 1942, she became the program's West Indies Producer. During the same year, she made turned the program into Caribbean Voices, which was a forum in which Caribbean literary work is read over the radio. Over two hundred authors premiered on Caribbean Voices, such as V. S. Naipaul, Samuel Selvon, George Lamming, and Derek Walcott. Through this show, Marson was able to come in contact with people such as Clare McFarlane, Vic Reid, Andrew Salkey, Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, Jomo Kenyatta, Haile Selassie, Marcus Garvey, Amy Garvey, Nancy Cunard, Sylvia Punkhurst, Winifred Holtby, Paul Robeson, John Masefield, Louis MacNeice, T. S. Eliot, Tambimuttu, and George Orwell, in which the latter helped Marson edit the show before she turned it into Caribbean Voices. However, "despite these experiences and personal connections, there is a strong sense, in Marson's poetry and in Jarrett-Macauley's biography [Life of Una Marson] , that Marson remained something of an isolated and marginal figure". [Narain, "Contemporary Caribbean Women's Poetry", 3.]

Although a marginal figure, her radio show, Caribbean Voices, as said by Kamau Brathwaite, is "the single most important literary catalyst for Caribbean creative writing in English". Since the radio medium made it so that the poems can only be read verbally, Caribbean Voices helped influence later Caribbean poetry to have a more spoken form, as Laurence Breiner notes, through the medium of radio "much West Indian poetry was heard rather than seen". [ Jenkins, "The Language of Caribbean Poetry", 127.]

Life after World War II (1945-1965)

While details of Una Marson's life are limited, those pertaining to her personal and professional life post-1945 are even harder to come by. In 1945, Marson published a poetry collection entitled "Towards the Stars". This collection marked a shift in the focus of her poetry: while she once wrote about female sadness over lost love, poems from "Towards the Stars" were much more focused on the independent woman. [ Jenkins, "Penelope's Web: Una Marson, Lorna Goodison, M. NourbeSe Philip", 139.] Also at this time, Marson wrote at least one article entitled "We Want Books-But Do We Encourage Our Writers?" [Donnell and Welsh, "The Routledge Reader in Caribbean Literature", 185-186.] if not more, in an effort to spur Caribbean nationalism through literature. Her efforts outside of her writing seem to work in collaboration with these sentiments, though conflicting stories offer little concrete fact about what she exactly did.

Sources differ in outlining Marson's personal life during this time period. Author Erika J. Waters states that Marson was a secretary for the Pioneer Press, a publishing company in Jamaica for Jamaican authors. This source believes that she then moved to Washington DC in the 1950s where she met and married a dentist named Peter Staples. The two allegedly divorced, allowing Marson to travel to England, Israel, then back to Jamaica where she died in 1965. [Waters, "Una Marson", "Dictionary of Literary Biography", vol. 157: "Caribbean and Black African Writers", third series, 207.] Another source, written by Lee M. Jenkins, offers a very different tale for Marson's personal life. This source says that Marson was sent to a mental hospital following a breakdown during the years 1946-1949. After being released, Marson founded the Pioneer Press. This source claims that Marson then went to the US in the 1950s where she had another breakdown and was admitted to St. Elizabeth's Asylum. Following this, Marson returned to Jamaica where she rallied against Rastafarian discrimination. She then went to Israel for a women's conference, an experience which she discussed in her last radio broadcast for "A Woman's Hour" on BBC. [Jenkins, 128-129.]

The conflicting details regarding Marson's personal life show that there is very little information available about her. For example, Water's article quotes Marson's criticisms of Porgy and Bess, yet provides no citation for this work. In combination with this is the limited record of her writings during this time period. Many of her works were left unpublished or only circulated in Jamaica. [Rosenberg, "The Pitfalls of Feminist Nationalism and the Career of Una Marson", 160.] Most of these writings are only available in the Institute of Jamaica in Kingston. Given these constraints, it is difficult to understand the whole of Una Marson's accomplishments during the final period of her life.

Criticisms of Marson's works

Critics have both praised and dismissed Marson's poetry. She has been criticized for mimicking European style, such as Romantic and Georgian poetics. For example, Marson's poem "mimics the style of Kipling's poem." Author Denise deCaires Narain suggests that Marson was overlooked because poetry concerning the condition and status of females was not important to audiences at the time the works were produced. Other critics, by contrast, praised Marson for her modern style. Some, like Narain, even suggest that her mimicking challenged conventional poetry of the time period in an effort to criticize European poets. Regardless, Marson was active in the West Indian writing community during that time period. Her involvement with "Caribbean Voices" was important to exposing Caribbean literature internationally, as well as spurring nationalism within the Caribbean Islands which she represented.

Works

*"Tropic Reveries" (1930, book)
*"Heights and Depths" (1932, book)
*"At What a Price" (1933, play)
*"Moth and the Star" (1937, book)
*"London Calling" (1938, play)
*"Pocomania" (1938, play)
*"Towards the Stars: Poems" (1945, book)
* Also published many articles in various periodicals

Notes

References

*Banham, Martin, Errol Hill & George Woodyard, eds. "Introduction and Jamaica". "The Cambridge Guide to African & Caribbean Theatre." Advisory editor for Africa, Olu Obafemi. NY & Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. 141-49; 197-202.

*Narain, Denise deCaires. "Literary Mothers? Una Marson and Phyllis Shand Allfrey". "Contemporary Caribbean Women's Poetry: Making Style". NY & London, Routledge, 2002.

*Jarrett-Macauley, Delia. "The Life of Una Marson". Manchester (UK): Manchester University Press, 1998.

*Jenkins, Lee M. "Penelope's Web: Una Marson, Lorna Goodison, M. Nourbese Philip". "The Language of Caribbean Poetry: Boundaries of Expression". Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 2004.

*Marson, Una. "Assorted writings in Voices of Women in Jamaica, 1898-1939", ed. Linnette Vassell. Mona & Kingston: Dept of History, UWI, 1993.

*Ramchand, Kenneth. "Decolonization in West Indian Literature". "Transition". 22 (1965):48-49.

*Rosenberg, Leah. "The Pitfalls of Feminist Nationalism and the Career of Una Marson". "Nationalism and the formation of Caribbean Literature". NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

*Donnell, Alison. "Contradictory (W)omens?: Gender Consciousness in the Poetry of Una Marson". "Kunapipi" (1996).

*Donnell, Alison, and Welsh, Sarah Lawson. "The Routledge Reader in Caribbean Literature". New York, NY: Routledge, 1996.

*Waters, Erika J. "Una Marson". "Dictionary of Literary Biography", vol. 157: "Caribbean and Black African Writers", third series. 207.

External links

* [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/69624?_fromAuth=1 Oxford Biography of Una Marson]
* [http://www.black-history-month.co.uk/articles/una_marson.html The Life of Una Marson]
* [http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/071905284X/lovehomeshopp-21/026-5584937-1416429 Biography of Una Marson] and [http://books.google.com/books?id=WTOBypHXZLgC&dq=The+Life+of+Una+Marson limited preview of the book in Google Books]
* [http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/ufdc/?b=UF00076705&v=00001 Una Marson's book of poetry, Heights and Depths] within the [http://www.dloc.com Digital Library of the Caribbean]
* [http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/UFDC/?b=UF00077395 Una Marson's book of poetry, The Moth and the Star] within the [http://www.dloc.com Digital Library of the Caribbean]
* [http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/ufdc/?b=UF00077397 Una Marson's book of poetry, Tropic Reveries] within the [http://www.dloc.com Digital Library of the Caribbean]