New from Smith/Doorstop
We're delighted to announce the launch of John Lyons' selected poems, 'No Apples in Eden'.
This title is available to buy from The Poetry Business, Inpress and selected book shops. (See here or call 0114 346 3037 for details.) The cover price is £9.95, and Friends of The Poetry Business are entitled to a 25% discount when they order direct from us.
£9.95 – 978-1-902382-99-9
An entertaining and powerful performance poet, John Lyons is also known nationally
and internationally as a painter.
No Apples in Eden draws on his four previous collections and includes more of his trademark vibrant new work.
'Most of these poems are made from the tough materials and the tough language of folklore and custom. Say them aloud and improve your English as well as your Trinidadian.' — Roy Fisher
'In hauntingly beautiful language, John Lyons recounts snippets of Caribbean life through poems which dance in the memory long after the book is closed.' — Valerie Bloom
JUMBIE JAMBOREE
Tonight is jumbie jamboree
in Mucurapo Cemetery
and what you know,
there is rum, souse and coconut bread
and jumbie bawling to wake the dead!
Ah tell you, is true
dem jumbies making spree
drunk in that midnight cemetery,
and jumbie hugging and kissing jumbie
doing rude things in a decent country.
And when the band strike up a leggo,
boy, the music is hot-hot calypso.
just listen how the rhythm flow
as they dance and sing in harmony:
Back to back, belly to belly,
we don’t care a damn
we done dead already;
back to back, belly to belly
in this jumbie jamboree.
Hear John reading Jumbie Jamboree at our website here
The Poetry Business receives financial assistance from Arts Council England.
