Subversive Sonnets

by Pamela Mordecai

Poetry. These "subversive sonnets" overhaul the traditional sonnet form to address a range of subjects, from the tenderness of love to the terror of rape, punishment, torture, and murder. The poet's quest is to corral iambics into the demotic of Jamaican creoles as well as forms of English past and present. Mordecai has an unfailing ear for voices, for the music that sings and laughs and laments the stories of family, clan, and tribe, and thus celebrating life. SUBVERSIVE SONNETS is Pamela Mordecai's fifth collection of poetry.

Genres: Poetry

112 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2012

About the author

Pamela Mordecai was born in Jamaica. She has published five collections of poetry, five children's books, a book of short fiction, and a reference work on Jamaica (with her husband, Martin). She has also edited/coedited anthologies of Caribbean writing as well as numerous textbooks In 2010, her play, "El Numero Uno" had its world premiere at the Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People in Toronto. Her poems have been shortlisted for the CBC Literary Award for Poetry and the Bridport Prize (UK). She is the recipient of The Institute of Jamaica’s Centenary Medal, Jamaica’s Vic Reid Award for Children’s Writing, and the Burla Award. Pamela lives in Kitchener.

Reviews

[2TReads · Rating 4 out of 5]

These poems were exceptionally deep and each poem carried a piece of history, experience that had me rereading and re-absorbing their meaning.

These poems are gripping, raw, exuding with a vulnerability and wrapped in family and island history; love and romance and erotic heat, a touch of revolutions and revolutionaries.

Poems that drip a cutting wit, are rolled in cutting observations, depicts experiences at home and abroad, expand the readers feelings and tug at memories of memories, that alert and assert a presence of mind and body and spirit; in places and time.