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Springfield Road: A Poet’s Childhood Revisited
272 pages, Paperback
Published July 16, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 18, 2024
This is an interesting book that I thoroughly enjoyed. It is more of a memoir than a biography that details her early childhood growing up as the daughter of a mother of Jamaican heritage and an absent father of English origin. The author details the bigotry she faced as a little girl growing up in the countryside with a violent and abusive stepfather in the 1970s and 80s.
The book is essentially about the autor's relationship with her absent father whom she only saw once that she caould remember. She seeks a meaningful relationship but his own personal problems eventually lead him to commit suicide, leaving her bereft of his love and affection.
The book explores her Jamaican heritage, her relationship with her mother and brother and her philosophy on life.
I enjoyed it, but others may not.
The book is essentially about the autor's relationship with her absent father whom she only saw once that she caould remember. She seeks a meaningful relationship but his own personal problems eventually lead him to commit suicide, leaving her bereft of his love and affection.
The book explores her Jamaican heritage, her relationship with her mother and brother and her philosophy on life.
I enjoyed it, but others may not.
January 12, 2025
I absolutely adored this book. I think the author was born just a couple of months before I made my own appearance into the world so it took me right back to my own childhood in 1970s Britain. The detail and nuance of this particular time is very well evoked with many references that had me squealing 'ohh, I remember that' or 'yes that happened to me too' - favourite music, TV programmes, playground games etc. are recollected viscerally.
There are extremely sad and depressing elements to the story and these are told with clarity and grace. The realities of life for anyone who felt different from the norm in any way as a child, and the often horrifying difficulties that resulted, are not swept under the carpet in this memoir, but exposed deliberately, with sensitivity and without denying the deep disappointment that Life and the decisions made by people around us, can enact upon us.
Salena also shows how these disappointments and the great mysteries that seem to surround the adults in our lives when we are children, can be turned into something meaningful and useful for our own lives and the paths we take - those that seem to be pre-set for us as well as those that we set for ourselves.
If you are a child of the 70s, especially if you are grew up in Britain and especially if your parents or grandparents migrated here from elsewhere, you will almost definitely relate and resonate with this beautiful memoir which I highly recommended.
There are extremely sad and depressing elements to the story and these are told with clarity and grace. The realities of life for anyone who felt different from the norm in any way as a child, and the often horrifying difficulties that resulted, are not swept under the carpet in this memoir, but exposed deliberately, with sensitivity and without denying the deep disappointment that Life and the decisions made by people around us, can enact upon us.
Salena also shows how these disappointments and the great mysteries that seem to surround the adults in our lives when we are children, can be turned into something meaningful and useful for our own lives and the paths we take - those that seem to be pre-set for us as well as those that we set for ourselves.
If you are a child of the 70s, especially if you are grew up in Britain and especially if your parents or grandparents migrated here from elsewhere, you will almost definitely relate and resonate with this beautiful memoir which I highly recommended.
October 9, 2024
Uplifting
This is a story of childhood, of trying to understand your place in the world, in coming to terms with the fallibility of adults. It's about overcoming the traumas of growing up especially if you are black in a dominantly white society. It's about writing and poetry. It is poetry. This is a beautiful story told by a brilliant storyteller. I loved it. Go Salena.
This is a story of childhood, of trying to understand your place in the world, in coming to terms with the fallibility of adults. It's about overcoming the traumas of growing up especially if you are black in a dominantly white society. It's about writing and poetry. It is poetry. This is a beautiful story told by a brilliant storyteller. I loved it. Go Salena.
August 12, 2025
the most beautiful and tender memoir i’ve ever read. salena godden does every genre impeccably.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews