Thomas MacDermot

Thomas MacDermot (26 June 1870[1] – 8 October 1933)[2] was a Jamaican poet, novelist, and editor, editing the Jamaica Times for more than 20 years. He was "probably the first Jamaican writer to assert the claim of the West Indies to a distinctive place within English-speaking culture".[3] He also published under the pseudonym Tom Redcam (derived from his surname spelled in reverse).[4] He was Jamaica's first Poet Laureate.

Thomas MacDermot
Born26 June 1870
Clarendon Parish, Jamaica
Died8 October 1933
NationalityJamaican
Occupationpoet, novelist, and editor

Early life

Thomas Henry MacDermot was born in Clarendon Parish, Jamaica, the third of five children,[5] and spent much of his childhood in Trelawny.[2] He was educated at the Falmouth Academy and at the Church of England Grammar School in Kingston, Jamaica.[4]

Career

He was a teacher before taking up journalism, at The Jamaica Post, The Daily Gleaner and the Jamaica Times, of which he was editor for 20 years.[4] He worked to promote Jamaican literature through all of his writing, starting a weekly short story contest in the Jamaica Times in 1899. Notable among the young writers he helped and encouraged are Claude McKay[3] and H. G. de Lisser.[4]

In 1903, MacDermot started the All Jamaica Library, a series of novellas and short stories written by Jamaicans about Jamaica that were reasonably priced to encourage local readers.[6] Alongside his work as a journalist, he wrote two novels. The first, Becka’s Buckra Baby, is said to mark the beginning of modern Caribbean writing.[7] MacDermot's poems were not collected into a single volume until 1951. He was posthumously proclaimed Jamaica's first Poet Laureate for the period 1910-33 by the Jamaican branch of the Poetry League.[3]

MacDermot retired because of illness in 1922.

Death

He died in an English nursing home in 1933, aged 63.[3]

Bibliography
  • Becka's Buckra Baby (1903), Times Printery, Jamaica.
  • One Brown Girl And ¼ (1909), Times Printery, Jamaica.
  • Orange Valley and Other Poems (1951), Kingston, Jamaica: Pioneer Press.
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References
  1. "Margaret Mary MacDermot and Thomas Henry MacDermot", de bene esse, 17 April 2013.
  2. Mervyn Morris, "Poet Laureate Remarks at Investiture Ceremony, King’s House, 21 May 2014".
  3. Michael Hughes, A Companion to West Indian Literature, Collins, 1979, p. 75.
  4. "Redcam, Tom (1870-1933)", Eugene Benson and L. W. Conolly (eds), Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English, Routledge (1994), 2nd edition 2005, p. 1338.
  5. . "Remembering Tom Redcam: Jamaica’s first Poet Laureate" National Library of Jamaica, 26 June 2017
  6. Pat Dunn and Pamela Mordecai, "All Jamaica Library", in Daniel Balderston, Mike Gonzalez, Ana M. Lopez (eds), Encyclopedia of Contemporary Latin American and Caribbean Cultures, Routledge, 2000, p. 53.
  7. "Caribbean Literature", Alexandra Street Press.
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