These poems explore the cultural nuances and the historical mile markers that give shape and meaning to one’s definition of self. They are written in praise of the creative, healing, and sustaining power and worship of the ordinary experiences that stitch together the fabric of one’s life. These are the rituals that become the substance of the memories that define us. And so we are able to leave our imprints that tell the story of our ancestral ties, the shaping of an identity, and the assertion of self. For, we are memory keepers, weaving together the genealogical threads that become the fabric of our life.  

In this collection, I travel through a library of memories exploring the interior terrains of my life’s experiences, a Jamaican woman born and raised in an era fraught with the struggles for independence and civil rights; living in a time where millions are still disenfranchised and terrorism hovers over our shoulders like a hungry crow. Rooted in the crucible of the Caribbean/African American Diaspora the poems reach out from personal and public spaces to capture the socio cultural currents of a life being lived in this tumultuous post colonial era. These poems are a sociological exploration of what it meant growing up in Jamaica. They also offer insight into the journey of one woman of color in the Americas, making intimate connections between past and present, and contemplations of the future.

Marva McClean