Vladimir Lucien is a poet, screenwriter and actor from St. Lucia. His work has been published in several journals including The Caribbean Review of Books, Wasafiri, Small Axe, PN Review, BIM, Caribbean Beat and in the anthology Beyond Sangre Grande. Sounding Ground is his first collection and is published by Peepal Tree Press.
Leanne Haynes: Congratulations Vladimir on the publication of your new collection Sounding Ground, which was published by Peepal Tree Press (2014). How does it feel to have published your very own collection?
Vladimir Lucien: Thank you Lea. It feels good, mostly because I have always felt tremendously proud of the quality of literature that has been coming from the region, which I encountered mostly in books. I also have received a lot of support and am terribly grateful for that. I feel that somehow I have become a part of what I have admired for a long time. Part of the conversation however new and ungainly the voice.
LH: You have been involved in Fringe St. Lucia and have taken part in a variety of events both on the island and in the UK. What was that experience like for you and how does the experience of the Caribbean audience compare with that of the UK audience?
VL: Well we did not have much of an audience in the UK at all for Fringe St. Lucia. The experience introduced me to the idea that there are epiphyte communities that develop in the name of literature that can be totally independent of and indifferent to literature itself. Arts business is a bloody sport, and it raises the issue of artists starting to develop a strange sense of value inside the capitalistic Leviathan (which has its price!) otherwise they can be trampled. Imagine that! Artists being trampled over by sectors spawned from their own existence!
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The above article has been republished with permission from the editors of ARC, The Magazine.