PRAGYA AGARWAL recommends a collection of drawings that explore the relation of indigenous people to the land in south Asia, Africa and the Caribbean
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Neither here nor there
Two accomplished collections from Grace Nichols and Louisa Adjoa Parker explore what it means to live between two worlds
VIVIDLY DESCRIPTIVE: Louisa Adjoa Parker
[Maisie Hill]
CHRIS SEALE speaks to Palestinian sound artist BINT MBAREH
MARY CONWAY applauds a brave and timely two hander that explores the difference between intimacy and abuse
ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review The Thing with Feathers, Train Dreams, Sisu: Road to Revenge, and Wicked: For Good
GUILLERMO THOMAS welcomes a biography of WA Domingo, a key figure in the anti-colonial struggle in the Caribbean
BRENT CUTLER is intrigued by the imperialist, supremacist and contradictory history of a word that is used all too easily
GRACE NICHOLS’ beautiful new collection Passport to Here and There (Bloodaxe, £9.95) is a kind of autobiography in verse.
The first part is about growing up in Guyana, where Nichols meets the ghost of her childhood, “running/with slipping shoulder-straps/and half-plaited hair/beside a brown expanse/of memorising water/and the mellow faces of wooden houses/half-hidden by a weave/of coconut, mango, guenip trees.”
There are some perfect poems here about adolescence, notably Confirmation, Spirit Rising and Sweet Fifteen: “If the leaves of my memory serve me — /That was the year my hair went beehive/the year of the kiss, touching smugly/in the mirror my bee-stung lips.”
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MEIC BIRTWHISTLE speaks to David Constantine about the fascination he shares with Brecht for the material exactness of Greek poetry