The humming birds

Lucinda Roy makes a living, breathing reality of women's history. Her poems compel us into the world she envisions, whether through the eyes of a slave or the eyes of a contemporary woman remembering Africa, remembering her dead mother, remembering nights of passionate love. And in the end the poems reveal how all these worlds are inevitably connected - how the slave, Lucy, still walks down the grand staircase of the plantation mansion, and how the poet's mother is still close by, waiting to be found. The work combines a seemingly effortless craft with an attention to detail that expands into unusual insights about the larger world. The poet excels at finding the uniquely personal image; even the tortoise, Albert, who was bombed during the London Blitz, becomes a potent symbol. "All I can offer now is resistance/to created myth, and sign, and metaphor," she says. Indeed, her poems, beautiful as they are, go far beyond metaphor to grapple with the very substance of life.

Year

1995

Language

English

Publisher

Eighth Mountain Press

Editions

1

Pages

88

ISBN

9780933377387

Data source: Wikidata