Archipelagos

by Geoffrey Philp

This is poetry written in the time of onrushing global disaster, of a racist and still imperial USA and of Black Lives Matter. Philp’s powerful and elegant poems span past and present, with a call to arms that opens out the struggle for human survival in the epoch of the Anthropocene to remind us that these horrors began not just in the factories of Europe but in the holds of the slave ships and plantations of the Caribbean. No natural world was more changed than the West Indian islands by sugar monoculture – and, as the title poem begins: “At the end of this sentence, a flood will rise/ and swallow low-lying islands of the Caribbean”. Historically, “the debris of empire that crowd our shores” connects to the “sands of our beaches / littered with masks and plastic bottles.” These are poems of wit and anger, but also of personal intimacy – dealing with the vexed relationship with a violent father – and give us line after line of the shapeliest poetry – in sound, in rhythm and the exact choice of word.

62 pages, Paperback

Published April 13, 2023

Reviews

[Rol-J Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Archipelagos by Geoffrey Philp is a delightful read, not because of the topics covered, but because of Philp's mastery of poetic language in championing environmental, climate and social causes. Philp crosses epochs with ease and a heightened sense of poetic curiosity. He traverses the annals of history in search of tyrants, with the beautiful aim of scorning and scolding them for their colonial and neocolonial exploits, and the collection transitions beautifully from the horrors of colonialism to the resilience of the Caribbean landscape under threat; the strength of trees, the re-emergence of vultures post-disaster as signs of life. From my perspective, I interpreted a slight rebuke of present-day Caribbean leaders using the imagery of Césaire on a balcony, overlooking smaller beings. I think it demonstrates that power gets to the heads of freedom fighters. Note: Based on Philp's rationale for Archipelagos, I am not certain this was his aim in including the ideas of Césaire, but the context of the poems does support my interpretation.
Beyond that, Philp potently, emotionally, destructively, yet wonderfully collides anthropogenic damage to natural environments with the cyclical disasters brought to our shores by hurricanes and other natural phenomena. Climate disasters are as destructive as colonial disasters and the climates of hatred and racism engendered in countries that have "believed in [their] innocence for so long".

This is definitely recommended reading for everyone.