In this collection, the uncertain paths of childhood and adulthood are traced through a sequence of poems that treat Idlewild—a place deep in the heart of rural Jamaica—as a character, a constant that serves as a reliable touchstone for memory. Although the majority of the poems are centered on themes of security and pleasant memory, the edges are haunted with truths of rupture in family relations, abandonment, loneliness, resentment of unreliable men, and the challenges of maintaining faith through difficult times. Balancing nostalgia for the past with an acute awareness of the present—the poverty, violence, class divides, and racial complexities of modern-day Jamaica—the central voice of the poem matures along with the subject matter to gradually unveil a well-formed poetic voice with an authoritative command of form and language.

 

Idlewild is a place of contradictions for Frances-Marie Coke in her impressive second collection of poems. Located deep in rural Jamaica Idlewild is a place of emotional and psychic shelter for the poet, and becomes, then, a place rich with symbolic and mythic meaning, not unlike Lorna Goodison’s Heartease. In this collection, Coke traces the uncertain paths of childhood and adulthood through a series of poems that treat Idlewild as a character, a constant that serves as a reliable touchstone for memory.

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Frances-Marie Coke comes to us with a well-formed poetic voice, a mature and authoritative command of form and language and a surefooted sense of what makes a poem urgent and timely.

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First published in Great Britain in 2010 Peepal Tree Press

17 Kings Avenue

LeedsLS6 1 QS UK

© Frances-Marie Coke

ISBN13:97818452308832010

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