Gangster Paradise
Lisa-Anne Julien
I sure if I tell Mr and Mrs Honeyblossom ‘bout the time I find my mother hangin, them go think she swayin nice and easy from a hog mango tree in we front yard. In they mind, they seeing the cool Caribbean breeze causin the leaves — or as Mr Bethelmy, my English teacher at St Antony’s Junior Secondary used to say — the foliage, to brush she dark skin and get tangle up in she afro.
Continue reading “Gangster Paradise”Two Poems
Summer Edward
Gossip, from Albion Street
Continue reading “Two Poems”‘Gossip’ from the Old English godsibb, from God and sibb, meaning ‘relative.’ A godsibb was a godmother, godfather or sponsor; literally someone ‘related to one in God.’ In Middle English the term godsibb came to mean ‘any familiar acquaintance’, especially women invited to attend a birth. Later, during the sixteenth century the term changed to ‘gossip’ and took on the meaning of a person, mostly a woman, attending a birth, but also delighting in idle talk.
—Monica-Maria Stapelberg
From the Wilderness, with Love
Concerning Bucks and Bacchanal
Kei Miller
It was two weeks after Carnival was done and dusted away that the buck appeared. And I think that was bad manners. Or at least bad timing. But maybe good timing and manners is not something to be expected of ghoulish beings. The point is, Carnival was done and people say life had already come back to normal. Everything had come back, including the Christians who had gone to Tobago to hide out, and including Trinidad itself that had gone wherever it is that entire countries go – cause sometimes it could feel like that, like the island itself had just packed up and gone along with the Christians, and along with good behaviour, gone off somewhere to hunker down and keep safe during the Carnival week.
Continue reading “Concerning Bucks and Bacchanal”Three Strikes
Maelynn Seymour-Major
I am sitting
having coffee
across from a man
who says
You’re lucky
to be from Barbados: strike one
The Bahamas
I gently correct
To swim in the sea
whenever you want
to eat fresh seafood
to live in such a tropical paradise
it must be like vacation every day: strike two
He says this with excitement
as he imagines that if this coffee-date goes well
he will spend summers with me
running along the shore
holding hands
heads thrown back as we laugh
at some unknown joke
I think if this date goes well
and he makes it to home
meets my mother
who will have him hang curtains
in her family room because of his height
He will watch the news
with my father
hear the litany of jooking
shooting raping
and wonder where is that story sold
He will come eat conch salad
and truth be told
he has already said he is not culinarily adventurous
so he won’t like it
and I won’t like that: strike three, imagined but no less real.
Maelynn began writing poetry about the flowers in her grammy’s garden. Her poetry is still heavily influenced by nature, but she also writes about Caribbean and/or Black experiences of love. Maelynn has an MA in Poetic Practice from Royal Holloway, University of London. She has taught Creative Writing at the University of The Bahamas as an Adjunct Lecturer. She experiments with book-arts, is an avid reader, and loves her dog Violet.
Nausea & Nostalgia
Jessica Knight
Mek me tell unu a ting or dozen bout naming. Plenty Jamaican people dem know di first time dem get name it be one Christen-time name, when dem done born, so dat di official birth certificate get to certify di good intention ah di baby mada (and fada if di baby be blessed). Next, baby grow up and get one living-time name dat stick wid dem until dem done dead-off. Come funeral-time and is customary to return to dem dere Christening-time name fi di funeral pamphlet, and fi di death certificate.
Continue reading “Nausea & Nostalgia”