These “subversive sonnets” overhaul the traditional sonnet form to address a
range of subjects, from the tenderness of love to the terror of rape,
punishment, torture, and murder.
The poet’s quest is to corral iambics into the demotic of Jamaican creoles as
well as forms of English past and present. Mordecai has an unfailing ear for
voices, for the music that sings and laughs and laments the stories of family,
clan, and tribe, thus celebrating life in all its aspects. This is Pamela
Mordecai’s fifth collection of poetry.
"Like Pamela Mordecai’s other work, Subversive Sonnets is clever,
witty, insightful and linguistically acrobatic. Never one to shy away from
difficult themes, Mordecai employs the sonnet form to sing more than ‘little
songs’. There is organ music here too as thematically she moves between the
bottomless deeps and praise of heaven’s wonders. A courageous, affirmative, and
– yes – entertaining read. A wise, highly crafted and satisfying exploration of
life deeply lived in all its infinite refractions and life as we’d like it to
be." —Olive Senior, author of Dancing Lessons.
“Subversive Sonnets is an astonishing achievement. Beautifully gloved in
the materiality of everyday things and not-always everyday places, these poems
yet push the reader towards speculative realms of gold, where real places also
become mind places and homes of deep feeling. Mordecai readily takes us from the
finely personal to wider grief for North America’s, the Caribbean’s, and all our
sins, from the saucily bawdy to political fury and horror at a New World turned
bitterly, bitingly old, or from a joyous bounce to subsequent personal loss and
collective agony that can become skin-crawlingly terrifying. These sonnets are
the achievement of years of a poet’s wisdom.”—Timothy J. Reiss, Professor
Emeritus of Comparative Literature, New York University.
“Subversive Sonnets is sweet, acerbic, scintillating, and sassy. If you
want to be right, you can't go wrong in reading these verses that modernize the
sonnet, putting it in service of mischief, not only meditation. Mordecai has
assembled a collection that is arrogant in its dazzle and provocative in its
sizzle. Here's the real poetry, folks: thought given discipline and then set
free to sing and/or singe.” — George Elliott Clarke E.J. Pratt Professor of
Canadian Literature, University of Toronto.
About the Author:
Pamela Mordecai writes poetry, fiction and plays. Her four previous
collections of poetry are Journey Poem; de man: a performance poem;
Certifiable and The True Blue of Islands. Her first collection of
short fiction, Pink Icing and Other Stories, appeared in 2006. Her
writing for children is widely collected and well known internationally. El
Numero Uno, a play for young people, had its world premiere at the Lorraine
Kimsa Theatre for Young People in Toronto in 2010. She lives in Kitchener,
Ontario.
Geoffrey Philp’s Blog Spot receives a percentage of the purchase price on anything you buy through links to Amazon, Shambala Books, Hay House, or any of the Google ads or Google Custom Search.
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