“The Ghost of Mikey Smith: Space, Performance and Justice” in Caribbean Quarterly 63 (2-3)

Caribbean quarterly, 2017-07-03, Vol.63 (2-3), p.271-290Description In what follows I ask what Mikey Smith’s death performs?I use the term performance here not to describe a theatrical production but rather to explore the ways in which public actions can become statements about power. What does the scenario of Mikey’s death on an open road in public space and in full view of any passers-by teach us? Power, as we know, has to be performed in material ways in space. Mikey Smith died a celebrated popular poet. His performances in Europe and in the Caribbean electrified audiences and stirred debates about activist art, orality and embodied performance and its relationship to literary poetic traditions. He had released recordings of his work and a book was planned. All indications were that his work would make a significant contribution to the poetic and imaginative tradition of the region and the world. There are at least two commonly held views of Mikey Smith’s death. A first, less publicly stated than the second, is that Mikey’s murder took place as a result of his own ‘madness’, the drugs he was rumoured to use, his explosive, sometimes violent behaviour and his mental health. The second is the view that he was a victim of political violence and was stoned to death, assassinated by partisan thugs of the right, which was in power. Thinking about Mikey’s death now is a way to evoke Katherine McKittrick’s notion of a “spatial continuity between the living and the dead”.

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