Review by Celia Sorhaindo I have been recently in close attentive communion with the poetry collection, Scattered Pieces of Us by Alicia Valasse-Polius Some of my reflections: For me it was a deeply moving, transgressively courageous collection, had me feeling a full spectrum of feelings...some poems real uncomfortable to read but also some were playful and humorous. the collection title, epigraph and poem titles in the index, wove a story of what seemed to me some of the main themes, and reeled me in before i even communed with each poem. - epigraph — "scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,/And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes..." (Thomas Gray, "Elegy in a Country Churchyard') - poem titles like — Guests, Marooned Spirits at La Sorcière, Autopsy of a Bush Man, Extract from the Diary of a Dying War Child, Tales my Grandmother Told- Custodian, Sculpting, My Militant Nobody, Blood War, After They Die, Intimacy with Death, Reflections — To Those Not Yet Born, The Bridge, Silence, Encounter with the Wind, Lost Symphony of the Woodlands, Fruit-Bearing, Woodlanders, The Light, Glimpse of the Ridge, New Shepherds, Of Saints and Sinners, The Petition, Wolf Country, Script for a Cast at a Wake, Messages to Bush Children - Fleeing; Building; Running; Chanting, Rebuilding, Secrets of the Night, A Child's Cry, Give Tanks, When Night Visits and Voiceless and i was drawn to the separation into two sections, THE PIECES (19 poems) and US (22 poems), and the scattered "characters"/letters which could represent the "scattered pieces" of us, some shadowed, some bold — and how scattered characters, can form a whole alphabet and gathered together form whole words...words for a whole (re-)creational image-nations/worlds. i also loved the capital X — which for me always marks the crucial connectin crossin spot and loved Alicia's use of repetition, her various 'voices', including St Lucian "nation language", Kweyol, themes of African spirituality, ancestors, and the tensions between the dualities/opposing forces/bridges. also the atmospheric cover art by Jonathan Guy-Gladding. reading the poems often made me feel like i had entered a surreal & shadowy, unsettling, twilight, lucid dream/nightmare world, a liminal space — deep in a remote forest somewhere — the 'stories' told, through images, poetic words, rhymes & rhythms (almost lullabyic at times), voices, characters (children especially (Bush Children, War child etc), but also Marooned Spirits, Militant Nobody, Woodlanders, guests, souls, silence, forgotten dead, custodians, creator of curses, Bush Man, ancestors, nature), also felt very 'real' — probably some poem themes are familiar to many (if not all) of us in the Caribbean (and i'm sure lots of other spaces and places too) some of the themes about topics we often rather not see, hear, talk about...the 'taboos'...in those poems children are hushed, silenced, suppressed, violated, voiceless, suffering, fear filled, in pain, crying, (left) alone, lost...killed...they run, they run [some poems were intense, dark, haunting, gothic-like/grim fairy-tale/folklore, scary, and sometimes i too wanted to run away, look away, while reading]... ...there are masks kept firmly on and masks removed...bodies and Nobody's...there are secrets upon secrets...stories/folklore told & handed down...there is cutting/exposing/sculpting, autopsies, investigating, unearthing, closed & open eyes...there is shame, sheep, sin & silence...fear & courage...the pious/chaste/pure/innocent/naive & the vengeful/snakes/suckers of innocence/damner of wills/feeding/demanding/wolves/religious hypocrites/New Shepherds who "begin a flawless massacre...with opened bibles and sharpened swords"...there are lies/fasehoods/trickery/callous games/betrayals/hate/cruelty...there is loneliness/aloneness & sibling love/blossoming love/Giving Tanks/Praising Jah for wholla dem/"nuff wise words"...unruly/chaos/anarchy/battles/wars/massacres/butchery/torture/trapping/execution & tranquility/stillness/survival...lots of hushing, voices are stolen, ssh'ing, muffling, hiding...and there is speaking up...and down...praying & preying...unveiling...knowing & unknown & unknowable...all 'played' out against a constant backdrop/symphony of nature/Eden/fertile fields/greenery/forests/the wind/birds, light/day & dark/night, death & life, sounds/noises/tanbou/deafening notes & so much silence too...and various 'others' hushing, sleeping, singing, watching, watching, waiting, still...OBSER VAH 's — the poems are intense, forceful, forthright, tenacious — traumatic themes threaded with hope, humour, redemption, survival, faith and grace. a necessary unflinching seeing, 'witnessing', 'exorcism', ancestral remembrance, poetic libation, imagining, telling, un-silencing — to gather the fragmented fractal scattered pieces of history, events, stories, myths, memories, lives, communities, etc that make a collective "us" (including the fractal and scattered pieces of a 'self') the final two poems with their ominous lines — "When night visits...trumpet the coming of Death / but / all my brothers and sisters / remain deaf...They run. / But not my brothers and sisters. / They sleep." and "If you listen, / you will hear / the Earth's tears...Listen! / Listen!" — asking me/us, what now after reading? what part do i/we play in all of this? what do i/we do and not do, speak up for and against/keep silent about — what 'actions' of mine/ours contribute to all of this? ******** A few poems from the collection : Guests One night they came. They waited till I closed my eyes and they came. I have nothing that belongs to them but still they came. Shh! Listen children! If you silence your thoughts they will come to you too. ____________ Tales My Grandmother Told- Custodian SHH! Hush now. Calm yourself! Hush! Hush! Listen to all the sheltered and the aged! Be open to the mystery in the unknown and the hidden falsehood of my Beloved. When your eyes are opened, all will be unveiled; the deafening notes of the forgotten dead hidden cleverly in the cluttered greenery. ‘twas the one called Lady who knew them first - vaguely in the cloudless morn after slavery’s sting and later lucidly in slumber’s verse. She heard the eerie cries, felt the brutal chill - suffered alone in the stillness of her home. They came mostly at night to restrain her will with wails of fury which pierced her wooden dome. One day, she parted from this uncanny place near the unmarked grave under the apricot tree for the custodian would not share his space with an erring life who could not hear his plea. Now decades passed, and a millennium was born but the field’s custodian rested soundly in his spot guarding it from bitter dusk to placid dawn from men who died like the wife of faithful Lot. People came and left, trees were born and died but a faithful guardian kept watch from beneath haunting unsuspecting ones when time denied light inside homes seated on wilted wreaths. ____________ SIGWÉ They live in the most unusual places, the neglected cabinet, locked draw, faces you keep and meet. Your heart. Soon they begin feeding, demanding more each day, and leaving you with little like the leech sucking an unseeing prey. Always keep a watchful eye while you sleep. They’ll attack your dreams, assist your nightmares, keep your true nature masked always. Secrets then should not be kept within Frailty for the weak, broken heart shatters their safety, wounds their silence until they speak. ____________ [MESSAGES TO BUSH CHILDREN were my favourite suite of poems] MESSAGES TO BUSH CHILDREN - RUNNING Bwoy, you hear 'bout di platin next door - where dem does drag you name on di floor? My children run! When you see smoke from di platin Run! Hold you shoe in you hand. Don't stop for no one. Just run! Go hide all di tears from you new clothes. 'cause dey go say man beat you with hose. My children run! When you see smoke from di platin Run! Hold you shoe in you hand. Don't stop for no one. Just run! Shh! Don't tell dem wat you doctor said. ‘cause all of dem go pronounce you, “Dead!” My children run! When you see smoke from di platin Run! Hold you shoe in you hand. Don't stop for no one. Just run! Now, make sure you mouth shut on di bus - is nuff tales dem does tell to make fuss. My children run! When you see smoke from di platin Run! Hold you shoe in you hand. Don't stop for no one. Just run! And if you muss ... buy you farine quick. Don't let di smiles fool you now ...dem slick! My children run! When you see smoke from di platin Run! Hold you shoe in you hand. Don't stop for no one. Just run! ******** the collection is so linked to one of my constant ponders, root/route causes and effects and a whole lineage of other poems, poetry collections and novels i've read (perhaps in some way, all of them?)...Catherine-Esther Cowie's recent words about her collection Heirloom, my own poeting...'speaking' the complicated spectrum of all that we are sculpted by from past to present...the tightrope tension between the opposite poles of a human life x-perience...the violence & violations, the pain, the blood, the war, the mayhem & madness, the domination and despair, the betrayal, the lies, the fall, the chaos & curses & cries, the cruxifiction, the separation, the suppression, the repression, the 'sins', the 'struggle & strife', the 'trials & tribulations'...as well as everything else...the redemption, the resilience, the relation-ships, the survival, the singing, the courage, the carnival, the intelligence, the fight, the forgiveness, the family and friends, the comrades, the connection, the protection, the hope, the joy, the laughter, the love, the revelation, the awakening, the rapture, the twinkles in eyes, the Truth, the faith, the saving Grace...the God...the unknown & unknowable Mystery...the Surrender, the Peace, the Freedom...how we attempt to pull and piece together — perhaps by first unravelling — all the 'Scattered Pieces of Us'... “She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.” – Toni Morrison linked to the words of a whole long long lineage of Caribbean poets and their poem 'speakers' : ...Shara McCallums "Madwoman", "Now, I come to think is all a we blind/to what she mussa know, Nuh true:/one day the wind a come fi each a we/and knock we down? Not true when yu let go/the deggy-deggy branch yu cling to —/courage or not, yu haffi meet yuself at last" and "Q: What created you? A: A breach in the self", "When comes the night of your unmaking"... ...John Robert Lee's "You must now enter the silence alone and listen. Wait....where humility unveils some gracious incarnation... ...Derek Walcott's 'Fragments of Epic Memory'... ...Lorna Goodison's "awaiting a last fruitfulness, a new life and greening”, "Grace Songs" and "Heartease"... ...Kamau Brathwaite's reminder..."Art must come out of catastrophe"... ...Kei Miller's haunting Cartographer's questin & question "the widening ache of it; / to anticipate the ironic / question: how did we find / ourselves here?"... ...Tony Hall's #TTDJouvayProcess... ...Delroy Nesta Williams "Now even my mouth is ashamed of speaking...Calls for attention to its pain", "Ease the Hurt", "To a newness that can't be enslaved", "the journey continues With the rebirth", "An internal fight for freedom" Ralph Casimir's “...Let Freedom....... Man born free ....... Man live free ....... Man die free ....... Let Freedom.......” ...Olive Senior's gourd, Seeing the Light, Finding Your Stone, "...Seeing poems as islands might appear fanciful. But seeing, eyeing, watching, are themes that run through these books. And the fundamental truth of islands is the distinction between what is seen by explorer, exploiter, or modern day tourists and what is visible to its inhabitants. Islands – like poems – teem with life unregistered by the passing glance – of nature and humanity, voices and memory. It is this bounty that I, as an islander, wish to excavate and present, ever mindful that nothing is fixed, for we are on constant Hurricane Watch....I believe I have been subconsciously in pursuit of the missing, the disappeared, the hidden, the drowned, the buried, ever since...." ...etc etc etc... ******** these are also a few other words read, that reminded me of some of the collection themes too [maybe everything else shared on this page is related/connected in some way :-)] ๑ “Perhaps everybody has a garden of Eden, I don’t know; but they have scarcely seen their garden before they see the flaming sword. Then, perhaps, life only offers the choice of remembering the garden or forgetting it. Either, or: it takes strength to remember, it takes another kind of strength to forget, it takes a hero to do both. People who remember court madness through pain, the pain of the perpetually recurring death of their innocence; people who forget court another kind of madness, the madness of the denial of pain and the hatred of innocence; and the world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen who forget. Heroes are rare.“ —James Baldwin/“Giovanni’s Room.” ๑ “Our souls are not broken that they should need repair, nor deficient that they should need anything added. Our souls need only to be uncovered and allowed to shine.” — Rabbi Tzvi Freeman ๑ "It is not our job to remain whole. We came to lose our leaves Like the trees, and be born again, Drawing up from the great roots." — Robert Bly ๑ "The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness." — John Muir ๑ "You are not meant to be resilient. you are meant to be regenerative. there is a difference. resilience is surviving the storm. regeneration is making love to the rain until it turns you into a forest." — Chris Sexton ๑ "And she stopped...and she heard what the trees said to her, And she sat there for hours not wanting to leave, For the forest said nothing, it just let her breathe." — Becky Hemskey ๑ "Hold open your hand. Trace the outline of your fingers. Stop and think for a time about kinship. Think for a long time about kinship. The world lies before you, a lavish garden. However hobbled by waste, however fouled by graft and tainted by deception, it will always take your breath away. We were never cast out of Eden. We merely turned from it and shut our eyes. To return and be welcomed, cleansed and redeemed, we are only obliged to look." — From The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year Book by Margaret Renkl ๑"Poetry can repair no loss, but it defies the space which separates. And it does this by its continual labour of reassembling what has been scattered." — John Berger ๑ Land Ho By Kwame Dawes "I cannot speak the languages spoken in that vessel, cannot read the beads promising salvation. I know this only, that when the green of land appeared like light after the horror of this crossing, we straightened our backs and faced the simplicity of new days with flame. I know I have the blood of survivors coursing through my veins; I know the lament of our loss must warm us again and again down in the belly of the whale, here in the belly of the whale where we are still searching for homes. We sing laments so old, so true, then straighten our backs again." ๑ Catherine-Esther Cowie discussing her collection Heirloom https://poetry-off-the-shelf-87f4b310.simplecast.com/... "This person had a full life outside of this...what did that look like...a heirloom of cruelty and sweetness...and here I am because of it....I can't change the past but I take what was given...like a long song...in the book, each woman suffusing it with their blues and with their victory...but this is our song, this is us in the world, the sadness and the pain and the joy..." ๑ The writing of The Long Song, by Andrea Levy https://andrealevy.co.uk/.../the-writing-of-the-long-song... "...If our ancestors survived the slave ships they were strong. If they survived the plantations they were clever.’ It is a rich and proud heritage. It was at that moment that I felt something stirring in me. Could a novelist persuade this young woman to have pride in her slave ancestors through telling her a story? That was where the idea for The Long Song started. ... This is where I believe that fiction comes in to it’s own. Writing fiction is a way of putting back the voices that were left out. Not just the wails of anguish and victimhood that we are used to, although that is very much part of the story, but the chatter and clatter of people building their lives, families and communities, ducking, diving and conducting the businesses of life in appallingly difficult circumstances. ... Slowly I began to realise that I was not in fact writing a novel about slavery. The Long Song is set in the time of slavery, and the years immediately after, but it is really a story about a person’s life, a lost voice from history that needed to be heard. July, a black house slave, is my main character and she tells her own story. It features her mother, her father, her owner, her lover, her children. It’s the story of her life lived in a society so strange to us that we can barely understand it. But she lives it much as you or I would try to – with ingenuity, cunning, charm, resilience, despair, love. As for there being no room for humour, on the contrary, as in any life lived, it is part of the fabric. Dramatic events happened in Jamaica during this time – real events, like the Baptist Wars, the period of Apprenticeship, and emancipation itself – but again, just like you or me, July is never really at the centre of the action. She hears about it, is affected by it, but her experience of her times is an individual one, full of action of her own...." ๑ Pope Francis — "...The first thing I want to express is this: you are eyes that see and dream. Not only do you see, but you also dream. A person who has lost the ability to dream lacks poetry, and life without poetry does not work. We humans yearn for a new world that we may never fully see with our own eyes, yet we desire it, seek it, and dream of it.