A Review of John Robert Lee's Collected Poems 1975-2015

COLLECTED POEMS 1975-2015 by John Robert Lee represents one man’s spiritual journey meandering through thorny labyrinths of faith, “from inner city provinces to southern islands of Amerika” (“Challenger”). This journey began long before 1975: when a young Lee witnessed his father, Alleyne, relishing a dessert of fresh ripe mangoes on a Sunday afternoon and began to contemplate seriously his romance with the written word.

Rainbow in Balata

Meadow Dream.  Copyright © 2016 by Shallon Fadlien.

 

(for SF)

A story for you—

            in late afternoon drizzle

coming home through familiar Balata

its blossoming gardens of mangoes, gloricidia

 

            and palms’ branches like multi-winged cherubim — in that light

a huge rainbow, close as heaven, spectrum a palette

of red to indigo and her sister violet

 

            and I saw the end down a footpath

settled like a full-bodied beauty on a bench