Description
Book SynopsisThe Verandah Poems was both a departure and a return for Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze, who left her village in Jamaica to become an internationally renowned Dub poet and storyteller. This is a book of coming home and coming to terms, of contemplation rather than contention – of mellow, musing, edgy poems drawn from the life and lives around her. It was Breeze's first new collection after Third World Girl: Selected Poems (2011), and was published on her 60th birthday. Foreword by Kei Miller. With photographs by Tehron Royes.
Trade ReviewJean ‘Binta’ Breeze… emerged in the 1980s as the first female dub poet, fusing reggae rhythms and music with the spoken word… Through the use of a variety of women’s voices and contexts, Breeze’s work challenged the usual stances of the dub and performance poetry tradition. Whether on stage, record or page, she spoke for – and to – black female experience, encompassing a wide range of subjects, styles and tonalities. -- Lyn Innes * The Guardian *
Jean 'Binta' Breeze... was a poet who first came to prominence among Jamaica’s dub poets, but whose work quickly distinguished itself from its origins to gain a subtlety and versatility of its own. Dub poetry... was already capable of delivering powerful political messages. Breeze adopted this eagerly, but brought to it a more intimate voice that enabled her to advance feminism as well as openness about mental illness and sex...Her range included not only the polemical and the personal, but also more extended narratives and memoirs. -- Obituary * Daily Telegraph *
The third world girl, at home for a while, sets these attractive poems in rural Jamaica. Her verandah looks out on the sea, and she goes for a swim most mornings. The collection takes us well beyond the village, the bar across the road, and the men who proposition her. The easy-going voice talks of personal development, celebrates friends and family, comments on mortality, freedom, gender and class. The poet is examining, subtly, a more or less contented return to where her life began. -- Mervyn Morris * Poet Laureate of Jamaica *
Table of Contents9 The Verandah Matters by Kei Miller 13 Priming 16 Stranger 18 Homework 19 Evening 23 Football on the verandah 26 The casting of the roof 29 Departure of a daughter 31 After the World Cup 33 A visit from Scotland 35 Breakfast surprise 38 Birth 40 The rocking chair 41 Sound system 43 Tweet tweet 44 Heat 47 New men 48 Locking the door 51 Dorothy 53 Rainbow morning 54 No ghost 57 Tsunami 58 Rum 59 Visitation 61 Red, gold and green 62 Piercings 63 Christmas Eve 65 Chrismus 67 Presents 69 New Year’s Eve
