Eros Muse

by Opal Palmer Adisa

Eros Muse examines the love affair between the poet and her muse. Personifying the muse as her ultimate, possessive lover, the poet explores what it means to be a writer. The essays are more pragmatic in tone and approach and explore the dual role of mother and writer. Yet the poems are more flirtatious, a dance of language and process, a prance, a trot, a sweeping waltz in which the poet and language shimmy across the room. “Not only is this book a series of essays, poems, and journals from one of the Americas most talented and prolific authors, but a virtual how-to manual for those who have to juggle the tasks of writing with those of parenting. Opal Palmer Adisa succeeds, wonderfully.” --Ishmael Reed, Poet & MacArthy Fellow “In Eros Muse, the Jamaican-born Opal Palmer Adisa explores and celebrates motherhood, sexuality, ‘the orgasmic rapture of writing,’ and language itself – right on down to parts of speech. By asserting that ‘the poem is a seed in quest of the sun,’ Adisa makes her the word remains a procreative force in which she, for one, takes pleasure.” -- Al Young, Poet Laureate of California “Opal, whose elders ‘lived life with a robust intensity that tingled [her] to the core,’ does not lessen that familial fury in these poems & essays, cannily meshing sacred rites de passion with the secular/cultural rights of her Caribbean/World cosmos. Her consummate poetics & sensual commitments--in defiance of a storm of ‘norm/s’--do indeed ‘tingle us to the core.’” --Eugene Redmond, Poet Laureate of East Saint Louis, Illinois; Editor of Drumvoices Revue “Opal Palmer Adisa turns within herself to conjure up some of the external/internal events and experiences that culminated in her becoming a writer. She describes her first stories composed while hiding in tall grasses and her growing efforts to address issues of cultural imperialism, her love of words, and her appreciation of the ‘vibrant energy of her people.’” --Jayne Cortez, Poet

Hardcover

Published April 1, 2006

About the author

Opal Palmer Adisa (born 1954) is a Jamaica-born award-winning poet, novelist, performance artist and educator. Anthologised in over 100 publications, she has been a regular performer of her work internationally.

Since 1993, Opal Palmer Adisa has taught literature and served as Chair of the Ethnic Studies/Cultural Diversity Program at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. Dr. Adisa has two masters degrees from San Francisco State University, and a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. She has previously taught undergraduate and graduate courses at California College of the Arts, Stanford University, University of Berkeley, and San Francisco State University. In the spring of 2010, she became a member of the teaching staff at the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI), St Croix Campus, and also served as editor of The Caribbean Writer, UVI’s famous journal of Caribbean literature, for 2 years.
An important element of her poetry is the use of nation language, about which she has said: "I have to credit [Louise] Bennett for granting me permission, so to speak, to write in Nation Language, because it was her usage that allowed me to see the beauty of our language. Moreover, there are just some things that don’t have the same sense of intimacy or color if not said in Nation language.... I use nation language when it is the only way and the best way to get my point across, to say what I mean from the center of my navel. But I also use it, to interrupt and disrupt standard English as s reminder to myself that I have another tongue, but also to jolt readers to listen and read more carefully, to glean from the language the Caribbean sensibilities that I am always pushing, sometimes subtly, other times more forcefully. Nation language allows me to infuse the poem with all of the smells and colors of home.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Naori · Rating 4 out of 5]

Opal Palmer Adisa is like an Oracle of writing...essays spiced with poetry, a Mother of the Caribbean written word.