Description
Book SynopsisThese poems gives voice to the people who came on the first ships from the Caribbean, whose journeys held strange echoes of earlier sea voyages which had brought ancestors from Africa to the slave plantations. James Berry - from Jamaica - was one of these emigrants, settling in Britain in 1948. This late collection by Berry explores the different reasons he and his fellow travellers had for leaving the Caribbean when they rushed to get on the boat. This publication was linked with events marking the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery. The poems also look back on slavery and individual experiences of hardship and trying to make a living: ‘Mi one milkin cow just die! / Gone, gone – and leave me / Like hurricane disaster!’ Windrush Songs ranges from from lyrical pictures of Caribbean country life to poems in the voices of travellers with desires, fears, anxieties, hopes and ambitions. James Berry came to Britain on the next ship after the Windrush and shared many of the experiences that prompted this migration in search of change and a better life. Many of the poems from Windrush were included in James Berry's A Story I Am In: New & Selected Poems, but renewed interest in Windrush Songs has prompted its reissue.
Trade ReviewBerry came to Britain from Jamaica in 1948. In the introduction to this collection of poems, he explains why he came to Britain and left a country he loved. 'Beginning in a City, 1948' in particular gives a strong impression of what Caribbean arrivals experienced in their first hours and days. The emigrant experience is often littered with contradictions… and Berry’s poems illustrate this perfectly. -- Louise Hare
When I think of James Berry’s poetry I think of celebration… celebration with an echo of despair, but his urge to find worth and joy in both the remembered life of his rural Jamaican childhood and in his sojourn as a "bluefoot traveller" in Britain through the last forty years, is the real motive force of his work… Berry has been at the forefront of the struggle to validate and honour the language people of West Indian origin in Britain actually speak. -- Stewart Brown
Table of Contents9 Introduction PART 1: HATING A PLACE YOU LOVE 14 Wind-rush 15 Learning Beauty 16 Wash of Sunlight 17 Sitting up Past Midnight 18 Desertion 19 I African They Say 20 Villagers Talk Frustrations 22 Old Slave Villages 23 Poverty Life 24 Poverty Ketch Yu an Hol Yu 25 Devouring 26 Sea-Song One PART 2: LET THE SEA BE MY ROAD Reasons for Leaving 30 Sea-Song Two 31 Reasons for Leaving Jamaica 32 Running on Empty 33 To Travel This Ship 34 A Dream of Leavin 35 Breaking Free 36 Away from me Little Ova-bodda Piece of Lan 37 Land-Cultivator-Man at Sea 38 A Woman’s Dread of Layered Snow 39 Work Control Mi Fadda like a Mule 40 Sea-Song Three Reminiscence Voices 43 Reminiscence Voice 44 The Rock 45 Thinkin of Joysie 46 Mi Woman Hol Everyting Back 47 Fish Talk 48 Sun-Hot Drink 49 Empire Day 50 Childhood Mysteries 52 Old Slave Plantation Village Owner 54 Comparing Now with Ancestors’ Travel from Africa 55 A Talk to the Machete 56 A Story I Am In 58 Mi Fight with Jack-Jack 60 Sea-Song Four When I Get to Englan 63 Mother Country 64 Wanting to Hear Big Ben 65 Sociable and Unsociable Ways of Money 66 How the Weak Manufactured Power for the Strong 67 Song of Man and Man 68 Whitehall Goin Turn We Back 69 Eatin for Two Man 70 Englan Voice 71 White Suit and White Shoes 73 A Greater Oneness 74 Sea-Song Five PART 3: NEW DAYS ARRIVING 76 New Space 77 In the Land and Sea Culture-crossed 78 Beginning in a City 1948 80 Hymn to New Day Arriving
