A Fierce Green Place: New and Selected Poems
232
A Fierce Green Place: New and Selected Poems
232eBook
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Overview
A fearless collection by a trailblazing writer whose poems “represent the people, culture, and topography of the Caribbean in multidimensional, complex ways” (Tanya Shirley)
A Fierce Green Place: New and Selected Poems brings together, across the span of thirty-plus years, the rebellious, innovative work of the Jamaican-born Canadian writer Pamela Mordecai. From her acclaimed first collection Journey Poem published in 1989, to the moving elegy for her murdered brother in the true blue of islands, to the stories of freed slaves told in subversive sonnets, and on to her dazzling reimaginings of biblical stories, A Fierce Green Place highlights the astounding range and depths of a poet who mixes Jamaican Creole with standard English, profanity and reverence with dub and blues, the oral and vernacular with metrical virtuosity. Mordecai’s words, written out of a “womb-space” of sound and power, shine through neo-colonial violence and patriarchy with such lines as: “Women together / in one place will / bleed in solidarity / till every last body / turn super bitch at once."
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780811232142 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | New Directions Publishing Corporation |
| Publication date: | 05/17/2022 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 232 |
| File size: | 593 KB |
About the Author
Carol Bailey is an Associate Professor in the English Department at Westfield State University in Massachusetts, where she teaches courses in World, Postcolonial, Caribbean and Cross-Cultural, and Women’s Literatures. She is the author of A Poetics of Performance: The Oral-Scribal Aesthetic in Anglophone Caribbean Fiction (UWI Press, 2014).
Stephanie McKenzie is the author of three books of poetry (all published by Salmon Poetry) and a literary monograph, Before the Country: Native Renaissance, Canadian Mythology (published by the University of Toronto Press). She teaches in the English Programme at Grenfell Campus, Memorial University of Newfoundland.
Tanya Shirley has published two poetry collections with Peepal Tree Press in the UK: She Who Sleeps With Bones and The Merchant of Feathers. Her work has been featured on BBC World Service and The Poetry Archive, and has been translated into Spanish and Polish. She has conducted writing workshops and performed in the UK, Canada, the Caribbean, Venezuela, and the USA. She lectures at The University of the West Indies, Mona Campus and is a proud Cave Canem fellow.
Table of Contents
Early Poems
Red, Red Wine 3
A Birthday Wish 4
Butterfly 6
Eddy 7
from Journey Poem (1989)
Walker 10
Family Story 11
Island Woman 12
Chinese Gardens-UWI 13
Poem 14
Protest Poem 15
Last Lines 17
from de Man: a performance poem (1995)
STATION I: Jesus Is Condemned to Death 19
STATION II: Jesus Takes Up His Cross 22
STATION IV: Jesus Meets His Mother 26
STATION VI: Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus 28
STATION IX: Jesus Falls the Third Time 30
STATION XI: Jesus Is Nailed to the Cross 32
STATION XIV: Jesus Is Laid in the Tomb 34
from Certifiable (2001)
Tell Me 39
Poems Grow 40
Shooting the Horses 42
Dust 44
Convent Girl 45
To No Music 47
Jus a Likl Lovin 49
Elizabeth 52
My Sister Muse 53
My Sister Gloria 55
My Sister Red 58
Blessed Assurance 61
Certifiable 65
from The True Blue of Islands (2005)
The Story of Nellie 69
Great Writers and Toads 75
Yellow Girl Blues 76
Everybody Get Flat-A Dub 78
The True Blue of Islands 80
from Subversive Sonnets (2012)
Lace Makers 85
Cockpit Country-A Tasting Tour 88
Counting the Ways and Marrying True Minds 90
Zoey Stands Up to Schrödinger's Cat 92
Temitope 94
Trois hommes: un rêve 96
Poor Execution 98
One Time Jamboree-Darfur, Maybe? 100
Remembering Nothing 102
Bill Belfast and Lizzie Bell 104
Thomas Thistlewood and Tom 106
Great Granny Mac 107
Litany on the Line 111
Yarn Spinner 113
from de book of Mary: a performance poem (2015)
Opening chorus of male and female voices 116
Archangel Gabriel speaks to Mary 121
Miss Ann, beside herself 123
Mary has a baby boy 125
Anna's prophecy 127
Jesus grows up 128
Mary, as she waits for Joseph to be buried 131
Mary and some women of Jerusalem stay with Jesus 134
Mary Magdalene addresses Mary's friend, Mariam 137
Mary sees Jesus in the upper room 139
Closing chorus of male and female voices 141
from de book of Joseph: a performance poem (2022)
8 ("was a long time before me discover") 149
12 ("me was glad in my life") 150
14 ("black hair wid nuff twist tell me some son of Ham") 151
23 ("Debs belly grow a next time but de b woy chile slip away") 152
25 ("Debs bad luck wid horning baby never change") 153
29 ("me wait and me watch till de fire decay") 154
30 ("rake my heart when me tink how Debs die") 155
31 ("Debs and me share life near to seventeen year") 156
46 ("de Roman-dem say de gods use we for sport") 157
50 ("high priest wait till de widower-dem shut dem mouth") 158
59 ("is Mary self tell me") 159
76 ("we reach Bethlehem at bout de ninth hour") 160
80 ("Mary put Jesus on her breast") 162
106 ("dese last days Mary pining can't stop look for Jesus") 163
114 ("talk de truth me well glad it come like it come") 164
New Poems
Africa Poem 167
Hard Nut to Crack 168
Blood Claat 169
Sword on the Road 170
Toy Boy 171
Bawl Woman Bawl: A Lament 173
Shakuntala 175
Learned upon Bleeding 176
Sonnet 129 177
Not for Everybody 178
Come, Child 179
A Different Noise 180
"A Pig a Pearl"-A Native Myth 181
True-True Love 182
A Light Full Day in May or What's True, Pussycat? 183
Transcribing the Letters of William Alexander Bustamante 185
Searching for Home 187
A Poem Is a Power 189
Poem, Polemic 190
Poem Ascending 191
Stalking Ma 192
Walk a Short Way wid Dis Sistren: A Conversation with the Editors 197
Afterword Tanya Shirley 207
Author's Notes 211
Index of Titles and First Lines 215
Acknowledgements 219