Cannibal | 
pickWhile I found the cover (by Kenyan artist Wangechi Mutu) off-putting, it does match the confrontational & intellectual nature of these poems. I often felt a bit lost, yet loved many individual lines & imagery. The content explores multiple aspects of Jamaican womanhood, linking each section to quotes from Shakespeare‘s The Tempest. It‘s a #poetry collection that releases more meaning upon each reading.
Concurrent books reference Toni Morrison‘s The Bluest Eye:
“our sea, ten times bluer than the bluest eye” in Safiya Sinclair‘s poem Mermaid (tagged book);
and a Black woman undergoing scientific experiments learns how people react to her when her eyes are bright blue (ie “A drunk Korean woman did a double take and said loud enough for everyone to hear ‘Toni Morrison would be ashamed of you.‘”) in Lakewood by Megan Gidding.
"Sunset. That blood-orange hymn / combusting the year, nautilus chamber // of youth's obscurities, your empty room / for psalms, lost rituals."
-"In Childhood, Certain Skies Refined My Seeing"
"The word "cannibal," the English variant of the Spanish word *canibal*, comes from the word *caribal*, a reference to the native Carib people in the West Indies, who Columbus thought ate human flesh and from whom the word "Caribbean" originated. By virtue of being *Caribbean*, all "West Indian" people are already, in a purely linguistic sense, born savage."
#LitsyPoetry365 Day 319 - Pocomania
We‘re now moving from Joshua Bennett‘s poems of black men‘s experiences in the US to those from a young Jamaican woman. I had the great fortune to witness both of these supremely talented poets read recently, and it was amazing!
The title here refers to a folk religion practiced in the poet‘s homeland of Jamaica, involving veneration of ancestors and a revival-type worship.
pickAmazing poetry for poetry month.
pickWell this cover gets more disturbing the more I look at it. But the poems are solid, about leaving home, not fitting in, the south, being black, and somehow Shakespeare is in there as well. The poet is from Jamaica originally and this book is on the Dylan Thomas Prize long list.
Amazing, powerful reading by Safiya Sinclair! Can't wait to read this one!
