Lady in a Boat

by Merle Collins

In poems that express an oblique and resonant disquiet ('people dream of a lady/ in a boat, dressed in red/ petticoat, adrift and weeping') and a sequence that addresses memories of the death of the Grenadian revolution, too painful to confront until now, Merle Collins writes of a Caribbean adrift, amnesiac and in danger of nihilistic despair. But she also achieves a life-enhancing and consoling perspective on those griefs. She does this by revisiting the hopes and humanities of the people involved, recreating them in all their concrete particularity, or by speaking through the voice of an eighty-year-old woman 'making miracle/ with little money because turn hand is life lesson', and in writing poems that celebrate love, the world of children and the splendours of Caribbean nature. Her poems take the 'new dead ancestors back to/ mountain to feed the fountain/ of dreams again.' Merle Collins is Grenadian. She is the author of two novels, a collection of short stories and two previous collections of poetry. She teaches Caribbean literature at the University of Maryland.

Genres: Poetry

95 pages, Paperback

Published September 1, 2003

About the author

Merle Collins (born 1950 in Aruba) is a Grenadian poet and short story writer.

Collins' parents are from Grenada, where they returned shortly after her birth. Her primary education was in St George's, Grenada. She later studied at the University of the West Indies in Mona, Jamaica, earning degrees in English and Spanish in 1972. She then taught history and Spanish in Grenada for two years and subsequently in St Lucia. In 1980, she graduated from Georgetown University with a master's degree in Latin American Studies. She graduated from the London School of Economics with a Ph.D. in Government.

Collins was deeply involved in the Grenadian Revolution and served as a government coordinator for research on Latin America and the Caribbean. She left Grenada in 1983.

From 1984 to 1995, Collins taught at the University of North London. She is currently Professor of Comparative Literature and English at the University of Maryland. Her critical works include "Themes and Trends in Caribbean Writing Today" in From My Guy to Sci-Fi: Genre and Women's Writing in the Postmodern World< (ed. Helen Carr, Pandora Press, 1989), and "To be Free is Very Sweet" in Slavery and Abolition (Vol.15, issue 3, 1994, pp. 96–103).

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Yumeko (blushes) · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Bodies broken, scattered, bruised.
Can you call their names?
Who are their parents? What are
the names you are ashamed to call?
Such a shame to feel such shame of
a struggle for belief in self.

How to pretend not to know
of the raw wound in a nation divided?

Whose is vengeance? Whose is guilt?
And what have we learned? That defense,
attack, silent shielding,

all of this is love, the the world
crucifies itself for love,
that love can torture, love can kill

love can praise itself,
lie low and restrain itself.
Love can be so sure it's right

that it can rise again to
destroy yet again for love.
Love can pray in any language
before it kill.
Love is a terrible, terrifying thing."

Roll Call

It's not very often that I pick up books after reading their description on Goodreads, so I was rather surprised when I thought it kind of summed up this collection. But I'll assume I have something interesting enough to say to warrant the incessant desire to give this a review. I had picked up Omens of Adversity: Tragedy, Time, Memory, Justice, and the focus of the book was the Grenadian revolution (among other things), the author mentioned Merle Collins and took two of her books as an aid in their analysis of the experience of time as the revolution began, the many conflicts, and to it's tragic end. Emphasis on tragedy considering how it goes in depth into the definitions and conceptions of action bringing it about. All of this has been, at first rather subtle, priming to be especially cognizant of temporality in varying political and social landscapes. So fun and vague, but my point is that time, or it's experience, is almost thematic to me in this book, with every other poem making me feel differently about it, a feeling especially hard to miss if you're reading it back to back in one sitting. And none of that I could have gauged without atleast having read Grenada's history.
I'm aware this is specifically referencing Grenadian history, but I think more generally, that the emotional effects of art are almost always compounded after appropriate appreciation of the contexts within which it arises, or, in essence, by any insistence of going beyond the artwork, for the artwork. This one isn't the best example but it obviously warrants just that. How else would you appreciate the unprecedented frenzy in 'October, all over again' or the inability to remove yourself from the debilitating effects of catastrophe in 'October blues', which is practically oxymoronic to me given that blues (in jazz) produce the opposite effect. Both poems refer I believe to 25 October 1983 when the US invaded Grenada. It's...rather strange that the day is termed Thanksgiving day over there even though the invasion was disapproved of by even the UN general assembly, and they fought Grenadian resistance in way.
(Apparently the one monument in Grenada relevant to all this and after all their strife is one commissioned by Ronald Reagan, there for...the US soldiers who lost their lives invading Grenada...because the Grenadians fought back...)

"In the beginning
was the Word,
and the Word each hears is the Word
of Olodumare, Jah, Allah, God,
Jehovah, Yahweh, Science, supreme.

A man stands over a crater hole
that was once a house,
looks down into the bottomless dark,
weeps and calls for his son Muhammad
And someone opens his arm and says,
Muhammad, there is no Muhammad.
Muhammad is not there.

And the prophets bow their heads and weep.
The Word that has been spoken before,
will have to be spoken again."

Day five (letter)

[Marissa and her goodreads spam · Rating 5 out of 5]

i actually loved this collection so much. vivid grenadian imagery i could almost see it and taste it all for myself. i also learned a lot of grenadian history that i didn’t know but should.

music:

perhaps you are
lucky

when you are in
tune

with the music that’s
playing

not so those

who want a different
song

also, totally didn’t know that the grenadian flag had a nutmeg on it

[toria · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautiful! such powerful language and messaging. usually not too big of a poetry fan but i found all of these to be easily understandable and thought provoking. a great exploration of the grenada revolution through memory and grief.

[Ron Steiner]

The grammar is awesome with hints of Caribbean dialect and food.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I usually don't read poetry, but Collins' poems are brilliant. She engages with issues concerning memory, grief and hope about what Grenada was like during the Grenada Revolution.

[Grace McKenney · Rating 1 out of 5]

An interesting book of poetry that gets into the political state of the Caribbean as well as Merle Collin's past but really hard to interpret.

[Purple Iris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some lovely, some powerful. I'm not a fan of the frequent hyphen use.