Voices from the Shore

"THE COLLECTION IS HAUNTING, MAGICAL, BOLD AND SENSITIVE; A COMBINATION OF PRAISE SONGS FOR THE CARIBBEAN AND CRITICISM OF ITS FAULTS/SHORTCOMINGS."

-Professor Verene Shepherd, Historian-University of the West Indies

Tapping into the voice of the Jamaican people, the poems in this collection speak to life as seen through the eyes of a Caribbean poet grounded in the history, geography and realities of the region and the experiences of its people at home and abroad.

Author Cecile Jarrett became committed to recording life in the 1970s when both the Caribbean social and political landscapes were in the throes of change. In Voices from the Shore, she pauses to criticize the Caribbean political shenanigans, roves across the region sensing the quality of life and perilous existence of its people and captures the haunting beauty of the landscape. In "Water," she writes: Mystifying, destroying, / Saving, giving pleasure / Roughing up the roof / Gurgling round the bend / Roaring in the distance / Silent now my friend / Glistening in the sunshine / Gushing from the rock / Surging back to sea / Your power-a potent destroyer.

Presenting a dynamic visual and rhythmic flow and lyrical pace, Jarrett captures and shares the pain and pleasure of the Sisyphus-like existence of Jamaican/Caribbean women and people.