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A fierce green place : new and selected poems / Pamela Mordecai ; edited by Carol Bailey and Stephanie McKenzie ; with an afterword by Tanya Shirley.

Van Pelt Library PR9199.3.M6358 F54 2022
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Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Mordecai, Pamela, author.
Contributor:
Bailey, Carol, 1965- editor.
McKenzie, Stephanie, editor.
Shirley, Tanya, writer of afterword.
Rosengarten Family Fund.
Series:
New Directions paperbook ; 1531.
New Directions paperbook ; NDP1531
Language:
English
Subjects (All):
American poetry.
Genre:
Poetry.
Physical Description:
x, 220 pages ; 23 cm.
Place of Publication:
New York : New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2022.
Summary:
"A Fierce Green Place: New and Selected Poems brings together, across the span of thirty-plus years, the rebellious, innovative work of the Jamaican-born Canadian writer Pamela Mordecai. From her acclaimed first collection Journey Poem published in 1989, to the moving elegy for her murdered brother in the true blue of islands, to the stories of freed slaves told in subversive sonnets, and on to her dazzling reimaginings of biblical stories, A Fierce Green Place highlights the astounding range and depths of a poet who mixes Jamaican Creole with standard English, profanity and reverence with dub and blues, the oral and vernacular with metrical virtuosity. Mordecai's words, written out of a 'womb-space' of sound and power, shine through neo-colonial violence and patriarchy with such lines as: 'Women together / in one place will / bleed in solidarity / till every last body / turn super bitch at once'"-- Provided by publisher.
Contents:
Machine generated contents note: Early Poems
Red, Red Wine
A Birthday Wish
Butterfly
Eddy
From Journey Poem (1989)
Walker
Family Story
Island Woman
Chinese Gardens
-UWI
Poem
Protest Poem
Last Lines
From de Man: a performance poem (1995)
Station I Jesus Is Condemned to Death
Station II Jesus Takes Up His Cross
Station IV Jesus Meets His Mother
Station VI Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus
Station IX Jesus Falls the Third Time
Station XI Jesus Is Nailed to the Cross
Station XIV Jesus Is Laid in the Tomb
From Certifiable (2001)
Tell Me
Poems Grow
Shooting the Horses
Dust
Convent Girl
To No Music
Jus a Likl Lovin
Elizabeth
My Sister Muse
My Sister Gloria
My Sister Red
Blessed Assurance
Certifiable
From The True Blue of Islands (2005)
The Story of Nellie
Great Writers and Toads
Yellow Girl Blues
Everybody Get Flat-A Dub
The True Blue of Islands
From Subversive Sonnets (2012)
Lace Makers
Cockpit Country
-A Tasting Tour
Counting the Ways and Marrying True Minds
Zoey Stands Up to Schrodinger's Cat
Temitope
Trois hommes: un reve
Poor Execution
One Time Jamboree
-Darfur, Maybe?
Remembering Nothing
Bill Belfast and Lizzie Bell
Thomas Thistlewood and Tom
Great Granny Mac
Litany on the Line
Yarn Spinner
From de book of Mary: a performance poem (2015)
Opening chorus of male and female voices
Archangel Gabriel speaks to Mary
Miss Ann, beside herself
Mary has a baby boy
Anna's prophecy
Jesus grows up
Mary, as she waits for Joseph to be buried
Mary and some women of Jerusalem stay with Jesus
Mary Magdalene addresses Mary's friend, Mariam
Mary sees Jesus in the upper room
Closing chorus of male and female voices
From de book of Joseph: a performance poem (2022)
8. ("Was a long time before me discover")
12. ("Me was glad in my life")
14. ("Black hair wid nuff twist tell me some son of Ham")
23. ("Debs belly grow a next time but de bwoy chile slip away")
25. ("Debs bad luck wid borning baby never change")
29. ("Me wait and me watch till defire decay")
30. ("Rake my heart when me tink how Debs die")
31. ("Debs and me share life near to seventeen year")
46. ("De Roman-dem say de gods use we for sport")
50. ("High priest wait till de widower-dem shut dem mouth")
59. ("Is Mary self tell me")
76. ("We reach Bethlehem at bout de ninth hour")
80. ("Mary put Jesus on her breast")
106. ("Dese last days Mary pining can't stop look for Jesus")
114. ("Talk de truth me well glad it come like it come")
New Poems
Africa Poem
Hard Nut to Crack
Blood Claat
Sword on the Road
Toy Boy
Bawl Woman Bawl: A Lament
Shakuntala
Learned upon Bleeding
Sonnet 129
Not for Everybody
Come, Child
A Different Noise
"A Pig a Pearl"
-A Native Myth
True-True Love
A Light Full Day in May, or What's True, Pussycat?
Transcribing the Letters of William Alexander
Bustamante
Searching for Home
A Poem Is a Power
Poem, Polemic
Poem Ascending
Stalking Ma
Walk a Short Way wid Dis Sistren: A Conversation with the Editors.
Notes:
A New Directions paperbook original.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Local Notes:
Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Rosengarten Family Fund.
ISBN:
9780811231046
0811231046
OCLC:
1285121624

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