Description
Sadly now a posthumous collection, Snowscape with Signature shows Hopkinson to have been not only a pre-eminent recorder of 20th century Caribbean upheaval, of social indifference, wasteful violence and conflicts of race and politics, but a deeply moving poet of the inner person who can 'speak praise to heaven for this man's handicaps / which have stripped him at last down to himself'.
As a convert to Islam, Hopkinson also wrote some of the finest religious poetry to come from the Caribbean. In his adeptness with the 'sweet fetters' of form on a surprising fluidity of perception, Hopkinson will surely come to be seen as not only one of the Caribbean's finest poets, but an outstanding poet in any company.
The collection is introduced by the leading Caribbean poet and critic, Mervyn Morris.
"Hopkinson's poems are tightly disciplined but his imagination ranges at will, his capacity to surprise makes every one of his poems worth reading."
Mario Relich, Lines Review
Abdhur-Rahman Slade Hopkinson was born in Guyana in 1934. He lived in Barbados and Jamaica until, suffering from kidney failure, he went to Canada in 1970. He was an actor and dramatist of the greatest ability.
