She Spawned!
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SHE SPAWNED: I. MEMORY Rewind 25 Love Showers In Guyana Lip Gloss Dance Reward Old Trafford Sunday Secret Eddy Another Life Memory (Spawned) Our Revolution II. THE GIFT Hallelujah You Pale Moonlight A Bend of Language Heavy Load Light of Evening The Autograph Flower of Exile Innocence III. A TWIST ? The Spawn of Illusion The Ink of My Feelings Conviction A Change of Story IV. WRATH Killing Him If Only Interest? Home Alone Belong Waiting Weeping Fields V. DEATH Her Death (Episode II) My Archaeology A Psalm for You A Book for You Dark Room Vision I’m Not Ok With It Funeral Plans No Muse Adams’ Lump Memorial Service Tears Today Pilgrimage VI. THE ELEGY Your Stature A Closing Chapter The Islands 8 Days of Lockdown The Final Spawn Shortlisted Notes It was all so sudden when your spirit said I am going away I am gone May your journey now be straight-going May your road be a peaceful one. From, Wake – Kamau Brathwaite MEMORY Because. She was… REWIND 25 I would rewind 25 To keep you alive Like Marley, draw Smoke to open your eyes And realize Rewind the beach Strip To dive deep Head to feet And visualize Rewind riverside Put all things aside Let streams untangle Like the rhythm of a calypso by Ajamu We’ll be good If we should Life is not theirs It is ours ... SUNDAY SECRET Our secret behind the door, Sunday afternoons, That wouldn't let go: ANOTHER LIFE They seem so far away: That life, Those thoughts, The village, That gap. How he would often walk in: Thinking of you, The breadfruit, The mango, Old man Williams, The dictionary & The Bible. Years ago A life ended here too – Where the road ended On the hill overlooking More houses We sat through conversations The discomfort of cycles And the innocent suggestion: Try a warm bath or a hot bottle ... OUR LAST DAY I have no solid memory Of the day Or you in the back of the bus turning to see me Walk away (to nowhere). But to this day when I hear you say… My feelings are twisted Somewhere on edge I feel scared, the day becomes sacred Because you are dead ... II THE GIFT He introduced her to poetry When she was a poet already A BEND OF LANGUAGE II The Preacher’s Son says: The New Testament was written in Greek And I ask, In what language did God speak? He says: God isn’t restricted by what he made. But if that language is Hebrew and I am not a Jew… What would I do? To try and bend language Like Kamau Change its size … on the page Swim out of the passage in the middle I’ve been trying to bend language for you And you didn’t even know. LIGHT OF EVENING In the light of evening Words are few Too beautiful to describe Just like you! III A TWIST It was forever It was for never THE SPAWN OF ILLUSION II I still swim in The illusion of touching your skin So often, close in, I could do nothing So I keep you living To remember your breath The knocking teeth The space missing Regretting not biting more often Trying to do the right thing Swallowing saliva instead of drinking your brown skin THE INK OF MY FEELINGS Ink you naked In your beauty Ink your solitude Alone and weary Let me ink you in Saint-Domingue Before I ink you Liberté Haiti I want to ink you bald – without hair Wait an entire year Then ink you natty IV WRATH Her return, Came down Like lightning Spearing his ground. KILLING HIM How was he supposed to know What he was doing to her When he was 19 And she was 22? If the daughters take longer What about a brother Trying to put his mind in order After a first-time tabanca? HOME ALONE Midnight nears And I ride the train again This time alone I’m going home BELONG Butterflies will return With winds of a warmer sun If I am not your butterfly Where do I belong? V SHE SPAWNED- DEATH Silence. Quite suddenly… HER DEATH (EPISODE II) She died so young It was so wrong Who could have known We were wasting time playing in sand Instead of soaking in a sea of fun? MY ARCHAEOLOGY II We should blame America For the idea of a dream For the idea of everything For the idea of collecting riches For black men calling women hoes and bitches Because men collect princesses As if they are pieces for display in glass cases While counting their wages The wages sin pays is... A BOOK FOR YOU So now, I write a book for you Before memory drops And becomes useless The tiles fall off My true self I just see you young Not what you became When the archive was still there And we had nothing to compare When, it was all we knew. So, I write a book for you. DARK ROOM Sometimes, I feel for you, like in a dark room Where the light is replaced by thick gloom And my hands reach out like antennas To pull your signal and develop a picture PILGRIMAGE I When I make my pilgrimage To say goodbye, Shall I bring flowers? Or just weeping eyes? II We trod through days Like cascading water I think of Beirut And the sound of her harbour What a world! What a wonder! If ever like the Messiah I was walking across the wilderness of Judea Let me make it clear – My last utterance would be: ABBA! FATHER! A CLOSING CHAPTER I turned behind to look anew To study history as some men do To discover if it is so Every time I open a new chapter of you. 8 DAYS OF LOCKDOWN For Liz She come because I call her – From Strange Fruit – Kamau Brathwaite Part I Day 1: (Michael Jackson's Earth Song) The first day of the new lockdown You came again It was like the new rain Washing me in baptism And I became A witness at the Jordan Your spirit came down To be my crown And I mourned… The loss of the Revolution Of questions when we were young My vague assumptions And I wept in silence Like every Grenadian The horror of October Came through the door On the eve of Easter’s Passion
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About the Book
With the COVID-19 Lockdown as a fitting metaphorical backdrop, the writer of Tears of the Drum, completes his newest collection of poems. They remember things lost, revisiting places of physical and spiritual connections, elevations, elations, and streams of emotion. From a time of youthful idealism, they flow through seasons and landscapes to a delta of maturity and realism, decades later. From the rewind to the closing elegies, in She Spawned, Izzaak traces the pain of death, power of memory, innocence, exile, and the alternating light and shadows it casts on the framed human canvas. Sometimes invoking biblical dimensions, it's a pilgrimage from carefree to slavery to a tentative emancipation: Ink your bloodline through our country From its source to the rivers & your tributary Ink you free Before I ink you in slavery. From, The Ink of My Feelings
About the Author
Jeffrey Izzaak started writing poems in primary school in his native Carriacou. Aged 12, his first published poem appeared in a school magazine. After finishing A-level college, he became a member of a theatre collective in Grenada, completing a 7 year apprenticeship, studying poetry, drama and theatre arts, as a protege of Grenadian poet and playwright, Michael DeGale, who was a graduate of the Edna Manley School of Drama, Jamaica. He was an editor and columnist for the Karriacou Maroon monthly newsletter and has written one full-length radio drama and self-published four collections of poetry. In 2018, he began collaborating with UK-based artist Olga Miksche, creating artwork for his collections. In the same year, he also spearheaded the launch of the annual Karriacou Indigenous Arts (KIA) In D Bagadere exhibition, to highlight & promote the islands’ art, including literature.