Review by Booklist Review
Goodison advances from strength to strength. Her sixth collection finds her focusing the diamond lens of her incantatory verse on the culture and people of her homeland in the Caribbean and gives us a book full of pieces well worthy of anthologizing. For example, "Mother, the Great Stones Got to Move," a fierce call for history to be rectified made by the voices of the poor, demanding the "half that has never been told . . . our side of the story, exact figures, / headcounts, burial artifacts, documents, lists, maps / showing our way up through the stars." For example, the marvelous botanical catalog from which the book takes its name. For example, the narrative of Annie Pengelly, used by her mistress as a foot-warmer, for which circumstance "history owes Annie / thousands of nights / of sleep upon a feather bed. / Soft feathers from the breast of / a free, soaring bird." Taken altogether, these poems reinforce each other's many strengths and constitute a long song of struggle and survival, of inhumanity and human love. --Patricia Monaghan
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
