Book Review… Echoes of Time

Sep 20, 2020 Book Review…, News

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Book: New Voices
Selected by Lorna Goodison – Poet Laureate of Jamaica 2017-2020
Critic: Glenville Ashby, PhD

‘New Voices’ is a well-crafted work of defining aesthetics and a literary statement that clamours for meaning. Poet Laureate Lorna Goodison selects twenty six poets – twenty six ingenious voices that echo complementary themes. They are reflections of angsts, spirits harried by history and troubled by realities, spirits moved by days gone forever, but still piqued by possibilities. These poets must forge identities, stand their ground and pronounce unwaveringly as they ingest from the past. And we listen.
Khadijah Chin’s ‘Let It All Hang Out,’ invokes bygone days when grandma held sway, her spoken word gospel, commanding, reassuring and soothing. Chin recalls in rich argot, “And my granny woulda cry shame a di way, yuh lef yuh bed didn’t mawnin cause yuh mus always chant two psalms an kneel fi journey mercy just in case bad blessin’ tek yuh.
But to avoid all the ring Marilu
I smile and say
‘To each his own.”’
‘Easter Sunday’ by Jovante Anderson is loud and obdurately resistant. She rallies her resolve against those that have drained the blood from her turf, trampling on her birthright; those that render her people voiceless. “I the fish you feed on and embalmed in vinegar and thyme, resting silent in the ceramic grave gasping as if I died fighting, daring to claim Kingston…seasoned in the quietness of genteel company…how dare I breathe even as murderous tongues make a meal of me.”
Lauren Delapenha’s ‘The Dark Room’ veers into a tortuous, inescapable past. Metaphorically rich, she describes the self as constrained by its own imagination and left bound by deeply rooted memories.
“Tumorous, tumultuous it grew in the bowels of a house without a basement. I needed room without a view to grow,” she bemoans.
“Shooting models, drawn to their exquisite symmetry but also to deformity…Well, I don’t take photos – only photographs. Today I lock the darkroom door from inside. My negatives stay negatives. I spread them all out on the floor – what for? I close my eyes and try to see nothing. Instead there is mother, drinking tea.”
Trevann Hamilton’s ‘Old Clothing Store,’ explores the labyrinth that is the mind.
“The air inside is heavy and choking
Warning you not to venture more deeply inside
But the homeless…have taken on the challenge
They have taken residence. She is uninhabitable
Condemned. But she has not crumbled to the ground No, not yet.”
And Kiseon Thompson’s ‘The Backslider Remembers Baptism,’ is one of many remembrances. Here, the island sways with religiosity, God-fearing islanders boasting of their self-ordained exceptionalism.
“White linen and black skin
Invisible cuffs, rattling making a noise so familiar and desperate I remember how we prayed away our bodies to the lords come into us to fill us and expunge our souls…I vomited them out easy like exorcism. I am hotter than any white ghost – holy or not.”
Thompson’s second offering, ‘Healing in the Greenhouse,’ recalls the nurturance and magnanimity of nature.
“As time passes, some of us hug ourselves and forget to let go
Our roots nestle themselves to sleep
Because they are tired of holding bus
And are wrinkled being our servants
We hum a spiritual to appreciate the sun in which we wish to live, Through the moon. And this house you built in wood and rusty iron bars and black mesh is a sanctuary.”
‘It was my Fault’ by Romardo Lyons signals the death knell of a relationship and the searing pangs of guilt.
“Dropped it; splinters still, marbles rolling around like pool balls
Tried grabbing her, but it was as if I was moulding oil. Cherry went round and round ‘till the sink was lonely…”
And Jovante Anderson’s Velvet resounds with the same personal fissures.
“You are never alone
him don’t ever need to find you
You don’t ever need to come out.”
In Rozan Levy’s ‘Kingston Yard,’ we perceive ‘home’ as a balm to be conjured at will, its presence felt with immediacy. He pens, “I should have take more walks in the yard to see colours of cars that honk their horns, to observe the building blocks now aged and green, bed rest for rusty steel, to hear neighbours’ chatter to see them and say good morning. One day I will leave home and need these memories.”
In like vein, Kaleb D’Aguilar’s ‘Thinking on The Green I See in Transit,’ juxtaposes the unique and verdant abundance of the tropics with the coldness of the metropolis.
“We ride over this land lost my in the bleak terrain called England…Home from Kingston to St Elizabeth looking out my dad’s pickup
I see carrot, tomato, cho-cho, jackfruit, orange, otahiti, banana though we don’t see fall, we see colour all year around…”
Gail Hoad’s pens the highly interpretative, ‘Migrant,’ a poet’s cries of displacement, circumstantially forced to undergo the unthinkable, against the strongest of wills. Here, the intersectionality of enslavement and migrancy, and its overriding psychological evil are real; but somehow, the flame of life is inextinguishable.
“I am not one of those who left the land
Tenuous ties
pull taut here
stronger than ever
A tug on the heart strings
A sting in the eye
This aching
never-ending
hollow-hurting
Good bye.”
Poems unfold flowingly, their cadence soothing like running water.
‘New Voices’ brims with evocative, nostalgic musings. There is longing and an unfiltered celebration of culture and personhood. With soulful depth, every poet delivers a testament of truth, their truth and, in many ways, our truth.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)
Feedback: glenvilleashby@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter@glenvilleashby
The University of the West Indies Press, Kingston, Jamaica
Copyright 2020 by the National Library of Jamaica
ISBN: 978-976-640-785-8
Available at Amazon
Ratings: Recommended

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