I am a poet. Everywhere I have found the colonizing casualties of privilege, both in the Caribbean where I spent four decades, and here on this beautiful stolen land where I was born: it is once again ground for my home. But everywhere I have also found friendship, compassion, humour, generosity, and the solace of poetry.
Often my poems arise from memories, both personal and historical. They also develop from observation and constant reading, and from the natural world. These layered elements combine to offer through-lines for further contemplation in our wounded, resilient lives. I respectfully acknowledge that my home, in sight of the Sooke Hills and the Salish Sea, is on the traditional territory of the -lək̓ʷəŋən Peoples of the Songhees and Esquimalt nations. |