Keith Jarrett SELAH Burning Eye Books (2017) A seamless blending of the relatively unreconciled descriptors of queer and, for the sake of the ethnicity box, “Black British Caribbean”. In the brilliant opening poem “Acknowledgements”, @keithjlondon speaks (he is a revered slam poet) of “glitterproof ribs... that caved under the shadows of parental disapproval / we with pockets made of hand-me-down wounds”. His narrator contends with home-ophobia (mine, deliberate), gentrification, fair-weather allies and barbershop role models (though thanks are given to Frantz Fanon, Paul Gilroy, Stuart Hall, bell hooks and CLR James). Generations of family history become overwhelmingly present-tense in a trip to Jamaica, and in the “diabetic rot” of his dying grandfather’s feet. With tenderness and wit, he challenges expectations of his output in “A Gay Poem”: “Excuse me – poem – are you gay? / Have you grown up contrarily / to what I wanted you to say? / I mean, I certainly didn’t write you that way”. #keithjarrett #poetry #blackbritishwriting #burningeyebooks #queerwriting #gaystheword #gaysthewordbookshop #100booksinayear #100bookschallenge #100booksfor2019 https://www.instagram.com/p/BwpxSdDFeI_/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=6025zhn52agt
