Three New Books from Peepal Tree Press

Limestone by Anthony Kellman is the epic poem of Barbados and a major development in an indigenous Caribbean poetics. Drawing on the folk music of Tuk, Kellman invents his own forms of Tuk verse to write the story of his island from the destruction of the Amerindians to the present day.In this collection, Kellman constructs a vision of Barbados that encompasses suffering and achievement, heroic struggle and the setbacks of born of self-interest and timorous compromise. Above all, Limestone is never other than a poem: a vast treasure house of images, sounds, and rhythms that move, entertain, and absorb the reader in its world.

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Velma Pollard has developed a significant following among her fellow Jamaicans and in the wider Caribbean world. In this collection she will delight these -- and new readers -- with her capacity to unite the personal and the political in a seamless whole.

Organized into three sections, the collection explores underlying political concerns, such as the impact of global culture, the dangers of unobstructed American power, and the threat of Islamist opposition. The poems move beyond these problems, however, ultimately seeking resolution through understanding the flow of nature and urging a celebration of life.

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Black Yeats: Eric Roach and the Politics of Caribbean Poetry by Laurence Breiner.

For readers of West Indian literature, a study of Eric Roach requires no justification. He is the most significant poet in the English-speaking Caribbean between Claude McKay (who spent nearly all of his life abroad) and Derek Walcott. Roach began publishing in the late 1930s and continued, with a few interruptions, until 1974, the year of his suicide. His career thus spans an extraordinary period of Anglophone Caribbean history, from the era of violent strikes that led to the formation of most of the region’s political parties, through the process of decolonization, the founding and subsequent failure of the Federation of the West Indies (1958-1962), and the coming of Independence in the 1960s. This book presents a critical analysis of all of Roach’s published poetry, but it presents that interpretation as part of a broader study of the relations between his poetic activity, the political events he experienced (especially West Indian Federation, Independence, the Black Power movement, the 'February Revolution' of 1970 Trinidad), and the seminal debates about art and culture in which he participated.By exploring Roach’s work within its conditions, Laurence Breiner aims above all to confirm Roach’s rightful place among West Indian and metropolitan poets of comparable gifts and accomplishments.

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*Courtesy of Peepal Tree Press