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Ormonde
Ormonde is a chapbook by the award-winning writer Hannah Lowe, which brings together a cycle of poems and unique personal and historical archives to chart the 1947 journey of SS Ormonde, the first post-WW2 ship (followed within a year by the Almanzora and the more famous Empire Windrush) to carry significant numbers of immigrants from Jamaica to the UK.
- GenresPoetry
36 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2014
21 people want to read
About the author
Hannah Lowe
33 books24 followersHannah Lowe is one of a generation of younger poets whose work celebrates the multicultural life of London and its environs in the eighties and nineties. She writes with a strong sense of place, voice, and emotional subtlety.
Lowe was born to an English mother and a Chinese/Jamaican father. She got her BA in American Literature at the University of Sussex, has a Masters degree in Refugee Studies, and is currently working towards a PhD in creative writing.
Lowe was born to an English mother and a Chinese/Jamaican father. She got her BA in American Literature at the University of Sussex, has a Masters degree in Refugee Studies, and is currently working towards a PhD in creative writing.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 6, 2019
Ormonde by Hannah Lowe is a very small book. I got a surprise when it arrived in the mail. I think it did say something about the size on the website but it didn’t register with me at the time of ordering. I just wish it had been bigger because it would have contained more poems and I enjoyed Lowe’s poems.
From the back of the book: “Through poems and archive material, Next Generation poet Hannah Lowe recreates the 1947 journey from Jamaica to England of her late father Ralph “Chick” Lowe and his fellow passengers on ex-troopship Ormonde, the forgotten forerunner of 1948’s famed migrant ship Empire Windrush.”
The Ormonde, before being an ex-troopship, was also a passenger liner running the shipping route from Australia to England and my new character Peggy Linden is on that ship in 1924 sailing to Toulon. Hence my discovery of this book.
Mike Phillips, the author of Windrush: The Irresistible Rise of Multi-Racial Britain introduces the book and there is also a foreword by the poet herself entitled The Other Ship.
Most of the twelve poems that follow are accompanied by either text, newspaper clippings or relevant photographs. My favourite is the title poem Ormonde:
“Wind back the hours, the days and months, a year -
and out of fog. Ormonde sails like a rumour,
or a tale about how what’s too soon forgotten
will rise again - light up, awaken engines,
swing her bow through half a century,
return a hundred drifters, lost-at-sea.”
I also really enjoyed (and enjoyed all the others) Passieras, white, Schoolboy and the final poem In. A worthy introduction to the Windrush experience.
From the back of the book: “Through poems and archive material, Next Generation poet Hannah Lowe recreates the 1947 journey from Jamaica to England of her late father Ralph “Chick” Lowe and his fellow passengers on ex-troopship Ormonde, the forgotten forerunner of 1948’s famed migrant ship Empire Windrush.”
The Ormonde, before being an ex-troopship, was also a passenger liner running the shipping route from Australia to England and my new character Peggy Linden is on that ship in 1924 sailing to Toulon. Hence my discovery of this book.
Mike Phillips, the author of Windrush: The Irresistible Rise of Multi-Racial Britain introduces the book and there is also a foreword by the poet herself entitled The Other Ship.
Most of the twelve poems that follow are accompanied by either text, newspaper clippings or relevant photographs. My favourite is the title poem Ormonde:
“Wind back the hours, the days and months, a year -
and out of fog. Ormonde sails like a rumour,
or a tale about how what’s too soon forgotten
will rise again - light up, awaken engines,
swing her bow through half a century,
return a hundred drifters, lost-at-sea.”
I also really enjoyed (and enjoyed all the others) Passieras, white, Schoolboy and the final poem In. A worthy introduction to the Windrush experience.
Displaying 1 of 1 review