In her new book, Jamaican born poet Aldyth Irvine Harrison sets her sights on the natural world around her. Her concerns are both the physicality of being, for animal and vegetable and mineral, and the spiritual essence of humanity. Although FROM A STRIDENT WORLD OF SOFT PREVAILING THINGS is a collection of poems that could loosely be termed environmental they are not “protest poems” as such. The poet’s observances focus on the fragility of the world and the necessity for humans to stop, look and listen to the beauty that surrounds them in every moment.
Harrison writes with fluid lines that skip through often complicated rhyme schemes which ebb and flow. They are vibrant and lyrical and often sing from the page. A perfect example of the musicality of Harrison’s work is the aptly titled poem “The Dance and the Song”. Here the poet uses line breaks, deftly selected alliterations and true rhymes and slant rhymes to move her words like a carefully choreographed dance. This, and a number of her other poems, including the staccato stabs of “Providencia” and the more expressive, flowing, romantic “Frost Fairies” conjure the sound of the poet’s voice in the reader’s mind so clearly that one can imagine the lilt and intonation as if they were being read aloud.
Amongst the poems that touch on animals and plants and the precarious state of our ravaged ecology there are wonderful, personal poems of remembrance. “Aunt Cynthia” a nostalgia soaked memorial of a relative, now passed, and their games of hide and seek and dancing. And above all the twinkle in Aunt Cynthia’s eyes. Likewise, “Former Cuban Citizen” charts the passing of an uncle without sinking into sentimentality but with rare grace as it celebrates the completion of the “earthly leg of the journey.” This idea of a journey and a life beyond the earthly realm is continued through a number of poems including the celebratory “If I Die While Dancing” in which Harrison writes, “Passings are new beginnings/ bright openings into an infinite pool/ that inspires our creation.” There is a melancholic air to much of FROM A STRIDENT WORLD OF SOFT PREVAILING THINGS which comes from the poet’s maturity and experience. And even when there is sadness, Harrison shows there is always beauty, and amongst that, hope.
In FROM A STRIDENT WORLD OF SOFT PREVAILING THINGS, Aldyth Irvine Harrison celebrates the beauty of the world around her. It is a wide-ranging collection of skillfully constructed, multi-layered poems that are wise, joyous and accessible.
~Kent Lane for IndieReader