Portable Paradise

Roger Robinsons range is wide: the joys and pains of family life; observations on the threatening edge of violence below the surface energies of Black British territories in London; memories of an older Trinidad and visits that tell him both how he and the country have changed; emblematic poems on the beauty and often bizarre strangeness of the world of animals; quizzical responses to the strange, the heartening, and the appalling in incidents or accounts of incidents encountered in daily life; reflections on the purposes and costs of making art, as in fine poems on a George Stubbs painting, cocaine and Coltranes Ascension, and questioning thoughts on the ideologies of Toni Morrison and John Milton. The poems express a fierce anger against injustice, but also convey the irrepressible sense that Roger Robinson cannot help but love people for their humour, oddity and generosity of spirit. These are finely crafted poems, but what first strikes the reader is Roger Robinsons capacity to tell involving stories and capture the essence of a character in a few words. Drawn from the earlier collections, Suitcase, Suckle and The Butterfly Hotel, and with a generous spread of new poems, The Portable Paradise is a feast to be carried by lovers of poetry wherever they go.