Sunday, August 30, 2009

Review by Barbara Blake-Hannah


NEW BOOKS ON MY SHELF

http://barbarablakehannah.blogspot.com/

Souldance
, Poems and Writings by journalist and PR guru Jean Lowrie Chin (Publisher Ian Randle Publishers) attracted me primarily because of the lovely cover illustration of two dreadlocksed black cherubs draped in Red,Gold and Green banners. Jean is not shy to bare her life and her soul in her poems. Two of my favourites are her amusing “My Chinaman Jumped to the Riddim of Jah” that speaks of her Chinese-race husband enjoying his total Jamaican-ness, while ‘Pick Up Time” tells of the joys of collecting her children from school, children adopted from “… those nameless ladies, through whom the good Lord sent my babies.”

Half the book contains poems in both English and Jamaican, while the other half contains selected essays from her years as a newspaper columnist. Jean’s writings began as an Alpha schoolgirl and continue even as she steers the media campaigns of Jamaica’s biggest corporations. This is one of those books worth adding to the collection of Jamaican literature.

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