To Sweeten Bitter E-Book

Raymond Antrobus

• Herausgeber: Out-Spoken Press
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 26

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

After the death of his father, Raymond returns to Jamaica but restless questions begin to unearth inside him (Who I am now is something I need to remember). Upon returning to the UK Raymond travelled to Bristol, Liverpool, Hastings, Hull and around London to meditate in the places where the pain and grief of history is bigger than his own.

Leseprobe

To Sweeten Bitter . Raymond Antrobus

Published by Out-Spoken Press

All rights reserved©Raymond Antrobus

The right of Raymond Antrobus to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance to section 77 of the Copyright, Design and Patent Act 1988.

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Out-Spoken Press.

First edition published 2017

ISBN: 978-0-9931038-7-2

Design & Art DirectionBen Lee

Printed & Bound by:Print Resource

Typeset in: Baskerville

To Sweeten Bitter

Contents

Foreword

His Heart

In The Supermarket

Goodnight Africa Man

To Sweeten Bitter

Recognising Leon

Jamaican British

Miami Airport

Give Away His Clothes

Two Days And Two Nights In Kisumu, Kenya

When He Died

On A Boat, Zipping The Black River In Jamaica

Dementia

Kingston To Morant Bay

To Say

Scratched Light

Look, There’s A Black Man, Touch Him

Lifeguard

In The Classroom

The Day Is All Over Me Until I Find That Place

What Is Possible

Bottomless

Notes on the poems

Foreword

From the very title of this affecting poetry collection, to its final lines, where well-chosen spaces speak loudly what cannot be said, it is clear that Raymond Antrobus knows the value of words that are too precious to squander.

These are poems that are unafraid to be tender, yet are free from sentimentality. These are poems aching with the loss of a father, to dementia even before death, and Raymond Antrobus in these pages moves skilfully between the reclaiming and letting go of memory, transforming intimate hurt into anger and vulnerability and strength and laughter and compassion. Long after I had read the whole collection, resonances of the title poem, “To Sweeten Bitter”, with its poignant opening, remained with me:

My father had four children

and three sugars in his coffee

and every birthday he bought me

a dictionary, which got thicker

and thicker and because his word

is not dead, I carry it like sugar

The magic of good poetry has to do with what it is able to say also between the lines, and Raymond Antrobus succeeds in conjuring up a lexicon of emotions evoked by the experiences, observations and history that craft his identity, drawn from a world that may as naturally includes a classroom in Kenya, a boat trip down Jamaica’s Black River, a confrontation at Miami airport, as familiar home life in Hackney, east London.

Plantation lineage, World War service, how do I serve Jamaican British?

When knowing how to war is Jamaican British.

Occasional light references to other writers - from Louise Bennett, James Berry to Binyavanga Wainaina and Derek Walcott - give me confidence that here is someone who knows what it takes to follow this literary vocation. Having begun my career as a publisher with poetry, decades ago, I rejoice that Out-Spoken have taken on Raymond Antrobus, a poet so obviously destined for greater things.

Margret Busby OBE Writer & Publisher

It is not him walking

up the road in that green,