With the verbal urgency of Ginsberg’s Howl, and a visionary imagination in the company of Blake, Fault Lines confirms Kendel Hippolyte’s reputation as one of the Caribbean’s most important poets.
These poems are dreaded, urgent prophecies of ‘a black sky beyond’ – indispensable guides to life on a small island constantly threatened by the thrashings of capitalism in crisis. Here St. Lucia’s Paradise is a cruise ship come to remind you of your neo-colonial status, where global consumerism has poisoned the ambition of youth towards drugs, crime and violence.
And a true poem is a glimpsed oblique track
opened by the strenuous silver writhing
of a poet
riddling a living way through dying language,
creating a whole, hoping we fall, mindful,
into it
(from ‘Silverfish’)
Kendel Hippolyte was born in St. Lucia in 1952, and is a poet, playwright and director. He has published five books of poetry, including Birthright (Peepal Tree, 1997) and Night Visions (2006). He has performed his work in the Caribbean, Europe and America. In 2007, he won the Bridget Jones Travel Award to travel to the UK to present his one-man dramatised poetry production, Kinky Blues, at the annual conference of the Society for Caribbean Studies. In 2000 he was awarded the St. Lucia Medal of Merit (Gold) for his contribution to the arts.