Outskirts Press, Inc., Denver, Colorado (2009).
360pp. ISBN 978-1-59800-710-7
Available at £21.95 from: www.amazon.co.uk
Available at $28.95 from: www.amazon.com
You are the secret singer in the last note
of my song...
From ‘My Final Song’
It is the author’s prayer that these lyrical poems will highlight Christ’s ‘message of hope and salvation’. The title is presumably intended to echo the Medieval mystical work, A Revelation of Love, by Mother Julian of Norwich.
This substantial volume from a prize-winning writer explores Christian faith and the plight of humanity: it covers most subjects under heaven. The poet paints a rainbow of joy and pain. His work is seasoned with spice from the Caribbean ‘pepper pot boiling in the heat’.
Cecil, a college lecturer, journalist and ordained Christian Minister of Religion in Guyana, holds a Masters Degree in Theology from Life Christian University in Tampa, Florida. He speaks up on behalf of his ‘scattered people’, who have been ‘drifting on many shores’ since those shameful days when their ancestors ‘worked as slaves in the cane fields’. His portrayal of national sorrow is arresting. This reviewer, however, feels less at ease with some of the more intimate, confessional-style poems of deep hurt, such as ‘My Lover’s Kiss’.
The poet points the reader on from his land of ‘the bush hog’ and the ‘magnificent macaw’ to Christ, who alone fully understands those frail human faculties with which we experience love and loss.
