This is an updated version of a tribute to Mervyn Morris originally presented at his farewell retirement function, “Checking Out,” organized by the Department of Literatures in English, on 7 October 2002 at the Phillip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts, University of the West Indies, Mona.
Mervyn Morris became my mentor some forty-eight years ago. He didn’t know it then. In fact, we hadn’t even met. But my mother, who had been given the challenging task of trying to sell my self-published book of poems in Jamaica because I was away at university, called me in Canada one day to tell me that Mervyn had met her on the University of the West Indies campus, and he said that he had read my work and liked it and that I should keep on writing.
I was twenty. I had reached.
I actually met Mervyn for the first time a few years later, when I was back in Jamaica and joined one of the many creative writing workshops that he taught on the UWI campus. Mervyn was the ideal creative writing tutor. He was gentle in his criticism, he was enthusiastic in his approval, he was insightful, he was encouraging. He made me feel worthy. He welcomed me without reservation; he gave me an open invitation to drop off stories or pop in to see him at his office, or his house, at any time. He made me feel talented. He made me feel special.
So I admit that when I found out that I was just one of many young talents whom Mervyn was encouraging, I was a little put out. I had imagined somehow that Mervyn was mine, was my mentor exclusively. Instead, it turned out, Mervyn was the mentor of many, very many, aspiring young writers.
I forgave him for that, eventually—only because as much as he shared his time between innumerable writer hopefuls, the quality of his mentorship could not be bettered. If I wrote anything that I cared about, I couldn’t rest until he had seen it. He always took the time to read what I gave him, and to consider it carefully, and to suggest directions for me to head in the future.
In all this, Mervyn became my friend. It was as a friend that he responded when, many years ago, I went to him and told him I wanted to do a PhD. “Why?” he asked, clearly perplexed. “Why don’t you spend the time writing a novel instead?”
That was one of the few times I didn’t listen to him. Maybe I should have. Instead, I went ahead and registered, and Mervyn, always the gentleman, agreed to be my supervisor.
What was Mervyn like as a supervisor? He was gentle in his criticism, he was enthusiastic in his approval, he was insightful, he was encouraging. There was a new side of him, too, that I had not seen when he criticized my creative writing. As my thesis supervisor he always assumed that I knew more than I did. In our thesis meetings—held promptly at 3:10 p.m., though scheduled for 3:00 p.m., and arrived at by both parties running up the many flights of stairs, so that we both arrived puffing (though he puffed a lot less than I did)—he would say, “Well of course I know I don’t have to tell you about so-and-so,” and of course I would say, “Ah, . . . yes, . . . right,” and then dash off immediately to try to find this writer or work that I had never heard of.
The interesting thing was that it wasn’t a gently manipulative game that he was playing. I think Mervyn genuinely has a generosity of spirit that makes him think the best of people. The response to that generosity is that one doesn’t want to let him down. It was only in the final stages of the PhD, when I was thoroughly fed up with it and didn’t care what anyone thought any more, that I was occasionally brazen enough to say to Mervyn that, no, I had never read such and such a book; and then he would inevitably get a look of genuine surprise and disappointment on his face, which his impeccable manners made him quickly try to conceal. And when, unabashed, I would question whether it was really necessary to read any such book, since I’d already finished with that chapter (hint, hint, hint), Mervyn would laugh, then murmur softly that he understood my position, but, “I think you might find the effort worthwhile . . .” Nuff said. Jaded or not, I would have to get on with it, because the alternative scenario would be too horrific: being politely, quietly deleted from the list of people for whom he had some regard.
There was another great advantage to having Mervyn as a thesis supervisor. I was reminded of it when I asked him one day about the academic prowess of a past student from his department. He responded in his usual expansive way: “Erratic but able.” When one has a minimalist poet as a thesis supervisor, one tends to end up with a minimalist thesis. As a result, pompous, wordy, high-falutin’ pontifications were thrown out the window. Instead, I was encouraged to get to the point, and to not dwell on it too long, either. “You said that already,” he would observe. “Yes, but I wanted to emphasize the point,” I would try to say. Well, my minimalist supervisor was having none of that. Delete, delete, delete.
Mervyn’s aim was the production of a thesis that was readable: a revolutionary concept. He was dismissive of academic jargon that seemed more designed to impress the reader than to communicate. (My type of supervisor!) He was cautious in his embracing of literary theory, much of which I believe he found to be overly abstract, self-indulgent, excessive, and ultimately irrelevant—if not counterproductive—to the greater cause of literary appreciation. However, he knew some amount of it was necessary for a doctoral dissertation and so promptly pointed me in the direction of the relevant bodies of work. As a consequence of his insistence on readability, writing my thesis was almost a pleasure. And converting it to a book afterward was so much easier than it would have been otherwise.
Mervyn taught me the perils of overstatement, the power of understatement. He taught me that elegance is simplicity.
Our supervisor-student relationship ended decades ago, but I continue to value Mervyn’s opinion highly, whether the concerns are academic, professional, creative, or personal. With Mervyn Morris’s retirement, the UWI Department of Literatures in English, and the university overall, lost an irreplaceable asset. But I am proud to say that Mervyn remains my mentor, my advisor, and my friend.
Kim Robinson-Walcott recently retired as editor of the culture journals Caribbean Quarterly (University of the West Indies; 2010–23) and Jamaica Journal (Institute of Jamaica; 2002–24). Her critical analysis Out of Order! Anthony Winkler and White West Indian Writing (University of the West Indies Press, 2006) is based on her PhD dissertation, supervised by Mervyn Morris. She is the coauthor, with Petrine Archer Shaw, of Jamaican Art: Then and Now (LMH, 1989/2011) and the author and illustrator of the children’s books Dale’s Mango Tree (LMH, 1992) and Pat the Cat (LMH, 2018). Her short-short story collection You Have to Harden Your Heart: Stories of Kingston, JA (Blouse and Skirt) is forthcoming.