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Cane Arrow Press titles are printed in Britain on FSC-certified paper with laminated Trucard covers.
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Kiskadee Girl by Maggie Harris is OUT IN FEBRUARY 2024:
STILL AVAILABLE
100 POEMS FROM TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
Launched in 2012 but a few still available
The poetry of Trinidad and Tobago is a scarcely collected treasure: not one comprehensive anthology has been produced since 1947’s Papa Bois and A.M. Clarke’s 1943 book Best Poems of Trinidad remains the only substantive volume.
Before his untimely passing, Anson Gonzalez, he of The New Voices fame, instigated an archival campaign, the like of which has never been repeated in the islands. Included in his output for 2006 was his 41 Trinidadian Poets, a record of the best work from 1973 to 1993, as captured by The New Voices journal he edited over that period. This anthology seeks to bridge the period between Papa Bois and 41 Trinidadian Poets but also to reproduce representative poems from the entire 90 year period of T&T’s history of published poetry collections.
£ 20 including P&P Worldwide:
STILL AVAILABLE
ON WATCHING A LEMON SAIL THE SEA
MAGGIE HARRIS
Published 1 July 2019
" A lyrical and sensuous interweaving of 'sun-bright wind-cut' images and
memories … a symphonic celebration of self and of the landscapes that
inform her. This is Maggie Harris at her best."
GRACE NICHOLS
" Ford Madox Ford said of Jean Rhys, ' experience as an exile gave Rhys a unique viewpoint.' Maggie Harris has this viewpoint and much, much more … a dancer, a diviner, an arabesque on the water. She sings of freedom and love, freedom to wander wherever the soul may take you, never to be bound to place although we can evoke the tales, imbue the histories … marinate in the sensuality of it all. Sleep on the wings of this collection because you can ' t be pinned down, you need to fly wherever she goes." ROY MCFARLANE
CROSSED SUNS
by Ian Dieffenthaller
ISBN: 978-0-9562901-0-6.
Published October 2009
Poems written between Britain and the West Indies by the author of Snow on Sugarcane, a critical history of the poetry of West Indian Britain. The author grew up in and around San Fernando, Trinidad and has lived in Britain since the 1980s.
AFTER A VISIT TO A BOTANICAL
GARDEN
by MAGGIE HARRIS
ISBN: 978-0-9562901-1-3.
Published February 2010.
"This is the third collection from the award winning Guyanese-British poet: - a subtly orchestrated collection, telling of journeys and arrivals and dispersals, the epic of Caribbean reality. The poems are at times powerful and moving, at other times witty and tender, and always absorbing."
OUR TIME IS NOW by CY GRANT
ISBN: 978-0-9562901-2-0. Published January 2010.
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Essays on the need for a reawakening in Western consciousness including an intriguing thesis on the healing effects of the music of the steelpan.
This is a follow up to Ring of Steel, in which the author tells the story of Trinidad’s musical gift to the universe. His other books include Blackness & the Dreaming Soul, a personal philosophy, and Rivers of Time, poems collected over seventy years and including a moving record of his time spent as a PoW in Germany. Cy passed the baton on to us on 13th Feb 2010 whilst in his ninety-first year.
The Poems of Sam Selvon
Ed. ROYDON SALICK
Foreword: KENNETH RAMCHAND
ISBN 978-0-9562901-4-4
Launched August 2012. £13.50
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This is the first collection of Sam Selvon’s poems, thus rounding off the publication of the writer’s works; his radio dramas, ballads, short stories, non-fiction pieces, and novels have been in print for a long time. Roydon Salick has compiled the collection from records at UWI, Trinidad, the Trinidad Guardian and the BBC’s Caribbean Voices. His comprehensive introduction and notes provide an invaluable context for the work and a fascinating glimpse into Selvon as a poet.
Recommended books
Artefacts of Presence by Anson Gonzalez
Approaching Sabbaths by Jennifer Rahim
Undraining Sea by Vahni Capildeo
Limbolands by Maggie Harris
Snow on Sugarcane: The evolution of the poetry of West Indian Britain by Ian Dieffenthaller
Journals
Caribbean Review of Books
The Journal of West Indian Literature
Wasafiri after 25 years
T&T Bibliography of Creative Writing
Many moons ago, Anson Gonzalez compiled a bibliography of T&T literature. It is still available here Anson’s Bibliography..
Reviews
From time to time, links to reviews of T&T and West Indian British poetry will be posted here.
For free, well-written reviews, it is difficult to better the CRB. Have a look at their review of Picasso, I Want My Face Back by Grace Nichols
Articles
From time to time, links to articles on T&T and West Indian British poetry will be posted here.
You can read Nicholas Laughlin's article on Eric Roach for a short exploration of Tobago's finest.
Go BackRECENT PUBLICATIONS
Stephen's Song
FAUSTIN CHARLES
ISBN 978-0-9929388-4-0
Launched 22 December 2023. £10.00
Born in Trinidad in 1944, Faustin Charles has lived in Britain since the
1960s and released his first book of poems, The Expatriate, in 1969.
With the Caribbean Artists' Movement of John La Rose, Kamau
Brathwaite and Andrew Salkey, he was one of the pioneers of British
writing that springs from a West Indian consciousness; and as Sam
Selvon put it, he always carries his island with him when he writes.
He is frequently anthologised and writes across genres and subjects,
for children as well as adults. He has published seven collections of
poetry, five novels for adults, three books of stories and two plays; his
Selfish Crocodile is an international children's bestseller.
Stephen’s Song is a collection that commemorates the thirtieth
anniversary of the brutal killing of teenager Stephen Lawrence on the
streets of London in an unprovoked attack. The title poem has been
updated from the 1990s and the poems as a whole reflect the journey
of the old West Indian diaspora in Britain, still working their way to
a brighter future, their songs casting back and pitching forward to the
place where "everyting gonna be alright" as Bob Marley once said.
Click to order
KISKADEE GIRL
MAGGIE HARRIS
ISBN 978-0-9929388-6-4
Launches 2nd February 2024. £13.50
Guyanese- born, Maggie is a writer, artist and performer living in Kent. Twice winner of the Guyana Prize,
she has been awarded also a Commonwealth Short Story Prize, and the Wales Poetry Prize. She performs worldwide
and has 11 books of poetry and prose, this memoir marking with her 70th birthday. Her next
collection of poetry “ I Sing with the Greenhearts ” will be published in 2025.
KISKADEE GIRL has already been enthusiastically received.
Prof. Charlotte Williams writes, “ This beautifully phrased
memoir offers not just a vivid and evocative portrayal of childhood...
but a rendering of critical moments in the history of a changing and evolving nation. ”
Prof. Alison Donnell writes, “... Capturing all the exuberance of
childhood and all the complications of a new nation in
the making, Harris’s enchanting memoir of her mixed
ancestry family brings a fascinating past to life.”
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Click cover to enlarge
STILL AVAILABLE
Sixty Poems for Haiti
ed. IAN DIEFFENTHALLER
& MAGGIE HARRIS
ISBN 978-0-9562901-3-7
Published 28 June 2010. £9.00
A collection from poets in the West Indies, UK and
Europe, some seasoned ,some beginners. The only
brief given was to send a poem for Haiti. Many have
responded directly to the traumatic earthquake of
January 2010; others have sent recent work as a
gift to the people of Haiti.
Featured authors
The line-up includes poets from 12 to 89, from St Lucia to Botswana including Kamau Brathwaite,Vahni Capildeo and John Lyons. All have given their work without charge in order to help the Lambi Fund of Haiti rebuild the earthquake ravaged country from its grassroots.
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