Jean "Binta" Breeze

Biography Born as Jean Lumsden in rural Jamaica, to a mixed-race couple, she grew up in Patty Hill, a small village in the hills of Hanover Parish, and for a time was raised by her grandmother and great-aunt while her parents were studying and working. She attended Rusea's High School, taking A-levels in Spanish, geography and English literature, and soon after leaving in 1974, she married Brian Breese, a Welsh teacher whose name she would later adapt to Breeze. She then lived for three and a half years in the Clarendon hills as a member of the Rastafarian religion, also becoming an early participant in the Sistren Theatre Collective, She went on to become known as Jamaica's first female dub poet after she performed onstage in 1981 with Mutabaruka, who recorded her work, including her on the compilation album Word Sound 'ave Power performing "Aid Travels with a Bomb" and "To Plant or Not to Plant". on 19 March that year. Returning to London in September 1985, she earned a certificate of education at Garnett College (1987), taught Theatre Studies at Brixton College, but left after two years of teaching in order to be able to perform full-time. Breeze appeared on Channel 4's New Voices series in 1988, Her work was featured on Channel 4's series Bandung File in a 1990 documentary called "Moods and Moments". and Third World Girl: Selected Poems (2011).

Her theatrical appearances included leading roles, in 1987, in Edgar White's play The Moon Dance Night, and in Ntozake Shange's The Love Space Demands in 1992, for Talawa Theatre Company, directed by Yvonne Brewster, who also directed her in One Love by Kwame Dawes (Bristol Old Vic, 2001), as well as appearing in other productions such as The Prayer, directed by Michael Buffong at the Young Vic in 2000, and Geraldine Connor's Carnival Messiah at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2001. and wrote poetry about what she herself called "madness". In April 2006, on the BBC Radio programme The Interview, Breeze gave her perspective on mental illness and advocated increased attention to the needs of people with schizophrenia who may not be given as much leeway as someone with a "talent" like hers.

She presented her work throughout the world, including tours performing in the Caribbean (notably at Jamaica's Calabash International Literary Festival), North America, Europe, South East Asia, and Africa, and was once described as a "one-woman festival". In her later years she lived between Leicester in England and Jamaica. On the publication of her collection The Verandah Poems, released in March 2016 to mark her 60th birthday, Breeze explained its origin to David Katz in an interview for Caribbean Beat magazine: "I got very ill in England....As a matter of fact, I had two strokes and was in a coma for five days. So I decided to come and spend a year in Jamaica, to just get better. And when I came home, I spent all of my time sitting on the verandah, and I thought, why not write some verandah poems?"

Personal life Born Jean Lumsden, she married Brian Breese in 1974 (adapting his surname to Breeze) She married Simon Feathestone in 1998.

Explaining her nickname, Breeze said in a 2009 interview:

Breeze died on 4 August 2021 of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at her home in Sandy Bay, Jamaica. Carolyn Cooper wrote in The Jamaica Gleaner:

Actress Doña Croll was Breeze's distant cousin.

Archives The Bloodaxe Books Archive in Newcastle University's Special Collections and Archives holds a Jean "Binta" Breeze collection. It consists of letters and proofs relating to her published poetry works.

Honours and recognition In 2003, Breeze was awarded a NESTA Fellowship of two years, to be held in Cambridge.

In 2004, she featured in the photograph "A Great Day in London" taken at the British Library of 50 Black and Asian writers who have made major contributions to British literature.

She was an Honorary Creative Writing Fellow at the School of English, University of Leicester.

Breeze was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2012 Queen's Birthday Honours, for services to literature.

In August 2018, Breeze's poem "dreamer" was among those by six poets (the others being James Berry, Kwame Dawes, Lorna Goodison, Grace Nichols, and Andrew Salkey) that were displayed on the London Underground in a set entitled "Windrush 70, A Celebration of Caribbean poetry" to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the arrival in Britain of the ship Empire Windrush from Jamaica in June 1948, which marked the beginning of the most significant West Indian post-World War II migration.

In 2018, Breeze received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from the University of Leicester, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Jamaican Poetry Festival, and a silver Musgrave Medal from the Institute of Jamaica.

Works

Books of poetry Answers (Masani Productions, 1983) Riddym Ravings and Other Poems (Race Today Publications, 1988, ), edited by Mervyn Morris Spring Cleaning (Virago Press, 1992, ) On the Edge of an Island (Bloodaxe Books, 1997, ) Song Lines (Gecko Press, 1997, ) The Arrival of Brighteye and Other Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2000, ) The Fifth Figure (Bloodaxe Books, 2006, ) Third World Girl: Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2011, ), with live performances DVD Third World Girl: Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2016, )

Albums Source: Riddym Ravings (1987), ROIR Tracks (1991), LKJ Records Hearsay (1994), 57 Productions Riding on de Riddym (1997), 57 Productions Eena Me Corner (2010), Arroyo Rec.