The Gathering
Tuesday, April 3, 2018
Jepa's Place,
7153 West Oakland Park Blvd.
Lauderhill, FL 33313
"The Gathering takes us on a lyrical dance...at once rub-a-dub, at once three-step, at once quiet crooning in your ears as you 'rent-a-tile' ...Malachi, the word-Smith, has given us a poetry collection that seamlessly moves us through the soundscapes where love, history, memory, and the prophets sway our most powerful imaginings."
~Heather Russell, author of Legba's Crossing: Narratology and the African Atlantic
"One of Jamaica’s most compelling performance poets, Malachi Smith is offering here praise-poems mainly, and elegies, with these and other pieces raising questions about love, guilt, identity, culture, politics, and eye-opening experiences in travel. There are shafts of protest, but the dominant mood is of compassion. The policeman dub poet is a 'healer-man.'"
~Mervyn Morris, OM
"In The Gathering, Malachi displays his characteristic lyrical gifts in the exploration of subjects as diverse as travel, family, drug addiction, and the plight of the sufferahs. In these poems, the call of the Caribbean dances through memories that trigger his imagination and the various masks he employs to dramatize events. Sometimes a wizened storyteller, sometimes a prophet with magisterial lines, “Let them come,” Malachi delves into the political and class conflicts that divide the people of Jamaica and its diaspora, yet these differences disappear under the gaze of a poet who believes in the power of redemption."
~Geoffrey Philp, author of Garvey’s Ghost.
"Malachi's poems travel skillfully, confidently from the stage to the page. Here is an experienced bard and guide who writes and chants...With compassion about life in all its heartbreak and beauty, he has walked the walk and talked the talk for a long time. This gathering of poems is his generous gift to us. Give thanks."
~Lorna Goodison, Poet Laureate of Jamaica and winner of the prestigious 2018 Windham-Campbell Prize.
"Malachi Smith is the most dynamic poetry performer I've ever had the pleasure to witness."
~ Philip Hammial, Australian poet and sculptor.
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