Bluesman, by Pamela Mordecai

As we wind down September, I would like to share the poem, "Bluesman", by Pamela Mordecai, from her latest collection, Subversive Sonnets.

Bluesman*

It have all kind: Pushkin, Dumas, and, him same one

say so, Vincent Van Gogh. Him tell him bro, Theo

to smoke a pipe: “Is a good tonic for de blues,

which take me over, dese days, now and den.”

Him reason: “How you figure folks see me?

A ragamuffin… lowest of de low.”

Him say: “Painters come like a family,

a mix-up mix-up bad for all o we

for everybody fighting the next one.”

Him tell Christina, “No mind you’s a whore

from where I sit, you irie, evermore.”

Him recommend: “Don’t yield before the end . . . ”

Blowing him mind with a wild brush like Miles.

Like Don painting the scene with him trombone.

 

*Van Gogh’s words are slightly adapted from his letters in

Vincent by Himself . ed. Bruce Bernard (London: Time Warner), 2004.






Copyright 2012 Pamela Mordecai.
Reprinted with author's permission.

Subversive Sonnets - A Review

I enjoyed Pamela Mordecai's Subversive Sonnets so much, that I was motivated to write a review. Full disclosure here: I have never before written a formal book review, in print or online, so this is my first foray, and I hope I do justice to such a wonderful collection.

 

First off, I would like to offer sincere thanks to Pamela for sending me a pdf of the collection while I waited on my copy from Amazon. I had reached out to Pam, as my featured poet in September, to request permission to reprint some of her poems on Poets of the Caribbean and she graciously emailed me a copy of Subversive Sonnets.

 

Subversive Sonnets, published in September 2012 by TSAR Publications, is Pamela Mordecai’s fifth poetry collection, and it is a delightful read. At 96 pages, there are 32 long-form poems which span the early 20^th century to the present, touching on the forces of nature, environmental degradation, love, parenting, depression, class conflicts, race, survival, and the treachery human beings are capable of.

“Stone Soup”, the first poem in the collection, relates the experience of a survivor (a relative, perhaps ?) of the 1907 earthquake that devastated Kingston, and other parts of Jamaica. Then, "Family Story: Only Child's Version" speaks of the challenges of parenting, and of depression, and its impact not just on the depressed individual, but also family and the wider community.

 

A favorite of mine is the peripatetic "Reading at 4:00 a.m." which takes the reader on a global poetic journey, covering Walcott, Heaney, Louise Bennett, Larkin, Brand and Pope. Mordecai reflects on geography, migration and resulting miscegenation over centuries. The 4:00 a.m. reading also takes in the World Wide Web, and in a possible reference to global warming and environmental destruction, Mordecai writes:

 

"I read that animals can't fool themselves.

They know when they have fouled their habitats.

They know inside their breasts and blood and wings—

all animals that is but human beings.

It’s only us, the smartest of the lot,

who sit inside this slowly heating pot

like frogs saying the temperature’s the same.

Spring chickens spinning in a stewing sludge,

we sit and peck our corn and do not budge

we wriggle in our excrement and crow

our disavowal choosing not to know".

 

It was interesting to find out that "Reading at 4:00 a.m.", combined with "Litany on the Line" and "Trois hommes, un reve" was short-listed for the CBC Literary Awards in 2007. This, I think, speaks to the power of this emotive and interesting poem.

 

Then, there is the sensuous "Cockpit Country - A Tasting Tour" conjuring simultaneously the beauty of Jamaica's Cockpit Country, and the beauty of the physical expression of love.

"Poor Execution", a heart-wrenching and vivid poem, speaks to violence, and the wickedness of the human heart, with  haunting lines such as:

 

"Did they make you watch Julie’s screams purple

as she blew out her life with every breath

she drew to keep it in? Or was it that

as you begged to go last, hoping to hold

her as they sliced a smile into her throat,

he strummed his pick across your sanxian neck

and crimson burbled your reply under

your chin?"

Another favorite of mine in the collection is "Blooming in Barcelona", which was featured on this blog earlier this month and it was good for me to learn that "Blooming in Barcelona" was short-listed for The Bridgeport Prize (UK), in 2008.

Subversive Sonnets is a collection that every person interested in poetry in general, and Caribbean poetry in particular, should own. I give it five stars, and I am predicting many accolades for this powerful collection. Thank you, Pamela Mordecai, for providing us with a collection that further enriches Caribbean poetry.

 

Last Lines by Pamela Mordecai

I love this poem, Last Lines, by Pamela Mordecai. The poem speaks to personal responsibility, the limits of engagement and perhaps karma. What's your reaction to Last Lines?

Last Lines

This is the last line I draw.
Alright. Draw the last line.
But I tell you, yonder
is a next. No line ever last,
no death not forever.
You see this place? You see it?
All of it? Watch it good.
Not a jot nor a tittle
going lost. Every old
twist-up man you see,
every hang-breast woman,
every bang-belly pickney.
every young warrior
who head wrench
with weed, white powder,
black powder, or indeed
the very vile persuasion
of the devil - for him not
bedridden you know --
every small gal-turn woman
that you crucify on the
cross of your sex
before her little naseberry
start sweeten,
I swear to you,
every last one shall live.
Draw therefore, O governor,
prime minister, parson,
teacher, shopkeeper,
politician, lecturer,

resonant revolutionaries,
draw carefully
that last fine line
of your responsibility.

From the Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse. (edited by Stewart Brown & Mark McWatt). 2005

Copyright Pam Mordecai 2005.

Reprinted with author's permission.
 

Poet's World, by Pamela Mordecai

Sharing another Pam Mordecai poem, Poet's World.

Poet's World

Poems grow
in window boxes
or especial corners
of kitchens
where rats hide
or offices where men
above the street
desert their cyphers
of the market place
to track the clouds for rain
or ride the wind
guileless as gulls
oblivious of the girl
upon the desk
who proffers wilting breasts
for a fast lunch - Ah which of us
wants anything but love -

and first upon the hillside where bare feet
in a goat's wake avoiding small brown pebbles
know earth as it was made and men in fields
releasing cotton from the mother tree
milking tits heavy with white wholesomeness
or riding wave on wave of green cane till
the swell abates and the warm wind
finds only calm brown surfaces
thick with the juicy flotsam of the storm
make poems
and men who speak the drum
bembe dundun conga dudups cutter
or blow the brass or play the rhumba box
or lick croix-croix, marimba or tack tack
and women who record all this
making the tribe for start in blood
and sending it to school to factory
to sea to office, university to death
make poems

and we who write them down
make pictures intermittently
(sweet silhouettes, fine profiles,
a marked face) but the bright light
that makes these darknesses
moves always always beyond mastery
Griot older than time
on Zion hill
weaving a song into eternity.


From: Jamaica Woman: An Anthology of Poems. Heinemann Educational Books
Copyright 1980 Pamela Mordecai.
Reprinted with author's permission.
 

Pam Mordecai's Blooming in Barcelona

Happy to share "Blooming in Barcelona" from Pamela Mordecai's latest collection, Subversive Sonnets.

Blooming in Barcelona

 

Gaudi’s Park Güell is what we dreamed

in our back yard scavenging from the dust

bowl midden near the fence under a dull

green ackee tree. We searched for broken bits

of pottery to use as hopscotch taws

indigo emerald cerulean blue

and now and then the burgundy of dried

blood or salt-pork-and-beans in big tureens

flung by deserted wives their lives

splintering with the porcelain to serve

the simple pleasures of small boys

and giddy girls discerning history

in Delft or rare translucent bits

of chinaware or rude fat colours splotched

to make bright foreign fruit! And Gaudi on

a bare hillside looking out on a sea

the dust as dry the sky as blue

doing just what we did. Create

a medium pour water on the dirt

and mush it into mud then shape a wall

a house a curvy tower with a cross

and stick the shining bits and pieces in.

Raise up a town with paths and avenues

of candy coloured cobblestones as Antoni

of Catalan not long before gathered

his midden scraps to make a park

of mythic beasts what we scrawled in

our book of dirt blooming in Barcelona.


(From Subversive Sonnets. Copyright 2012 Pamela Mordecai)

Reprinted with author's permission.

Pamela Mordecai

I am thrilled to be focusing this month on Jamaican poet,  Pamela Mordecai. Pamela Mordecai has published extensively, and I hope to share her work with you throughout September.

To learn more about Pamela, check out her website. You can also view her blog, connect with her on Facebook, and follow her on Twitter.

Her latest collection, Subversive Sonnets is hot off the press this week, and I am hoping to get my hands on a copy soon.

 

Pamela Mordecai