Showing results by narrator "Paula-Anne Porter Jones" in All Categories

This groundbreaking Jamaican narrative poem takes on history, faith, sex, and poetry itself. As 24-hour television - belching out the swaggering voices of American hellfire preachers - competes with dancehall, slackness, and ganja for Jamaican minds, Clarice and Thalbot preach their own conflicting visions. Clarice's visions give her power; Thalbot is at the mercy of every wandering spirit. But when Clarice, under the cover of darkness, 'sins' on the beach, Thalbot alone knows of her fall. He sets out to journey to denounce the prophetess and warn the Ninevite city of its coming doom.

The poems in Riddim & Riddles throb with the heartbeat and drum beat of Jamaica. From the cool, majestic Blue Mountains to the hot, bloodied streets of Kingston it paints vivid and vibrant images of contemporary Jamaica. The poems in this collection move from urgent social insights about masculinity, the environment, and how the bony fingers of history reach into the present.