"Easton Lee is a poet, actor, orator, playwright, award-winning television and radio producer, communications consultant, and retired Anglican minister. Born in Wait-a-Bit, Trelawny, Jamaica, in 1931, Lee’s poetry is informed by his experience growing up as a child in rural Jamaica behind the counter of a small shop. His first collection, From Behind the Counter: Poems from a Rural Jamaican Experience (Ian Randle Publishers, 1998) is a compendium of narrative poetry that embodies the multiple vernacular traditions in which he grew up. After From Behind the Counter, Lee published Heritage Call: Ballad for Children of the Dragon (Ian Randle Publishers, 2001), which culls together poems thematically concerned with China and Chineseness. Encounters: Voices and Echoes; Poems from a Chinese-Jamaican Experience was published in 2003 (Ian Randle Publishers), and, more recently, Lee published a collection of short stories and a few prose poems titled Run Big ’Fraid (BalaPress, 2008). Prior to poetry and fiction, Lee was primarily known as a dramatist. Although probably best known for The Rope and the Cross (1979), Lee also wrote, produced, and directed Paid in Full (1965), the first original Jamaican teleplay, and several others."

~Tzarina Prater, Small Axe Salon

Return to Music Festival Home Page