Olive Senior
In Gardening in the Tropics, Olive Senior uses the garden, repository of stones and bones, sacred place of births and burials, as a symbol for freedom and the simple life… Senior evokes the colour and danger of life in the Caribbean, the struggles with nature and the oppression of her people.’ – Anne Cimon, Montreal Gazette
‘This collection goes down deep, drawing on presences and powers that have shaped the Caribbean and the lives and languages of its people. Olive Senior writes poetry of refreshing candour and craft, and she does so in the ancient figures of the poet – as messenger, maker and magician. She knows what words can do, and what they have done; and she shows how we live our lives in stories and songs, possessed by what belongs to us. Gardening in the Tropics tells of the strange and the familiar, of blessings and curses, of extraordinary characters in everyday situations. It is a wonderful gathering of poems.’ – J. Edward Chamberlain, author of Come Back to Me My Language