Roger Robinson (3) (1967–)

39/2021. This is a deservedly award winning poetry collection.

The opening section memorialises the disastrous Grenfell Tower fire in London from which 72 people died directly (and more have died and will die indirectly), deaths that should have been prevented by fire safety regulations. I'm not especially sentimental but the first poem already had me crying, as the author side-stepped trite or mawkish expression through carefully chosen imagery that is familiar enough to be comforting but show more also makes space for anger and grief. Roger Robinson has found not only his own voice but also voices for those silenced by death or deep mourning.

The subsequent sections include poems about slavery, migration, Black Britishness or Black Britons if you prefer, and art. I laughed aloud at Slavery Limerick as I'm sure the author intended.

From Blame

Meantime its tenants are left
to grieve in sterile hotels,
with nothing to bury but ash,
and survivors walk like zombies
trying not to look up
at the charred gravestone.

From The Ever Changing Dot (for Stuart Hall)

Look now: a picture of a grey-bearded man, hunched,
typing dense theory in empty, wood-panelled buildings,
someone intervening on his people's behalf,
creating a space and saying "Welcome." show less

While I enjoy poetry I don’t often find myself reading collections by a single author. This collection though may just change my mind. It was on the recommended reading list for upcoming workshop on reading diversely, and I’m so glad I picked it up.

Robinson interweaves his own history and experiences into pieces about blackness, Britishness, Windrush, police brutality, nurses and racism.

Particularly outstanding for me are the sequence of poems on the tragic fire at Grenfell towers which show more opens the collection, and later poems relating to the premature birth of his son and the health difficulties around this.

Robinson’s writing is easily accessible and he puts into words his thoughts, feelings and experiences in a way that is deeply affecting.

I will be reading more. show less

It's a while since I read Robinson's A Portable Paradise, and time to read one of his earlier volumes. Some very fine poems, and a view from a very different experience to my own, especially in my introduction to the Trinidadian life of a young man.