Light Song of Light Paperback – 28 July 2010

Don't know

This book is stunning. The first poem - inspired me to write in response but not before I continued on feasting on poem after poem. The imagery and the voice in this book is so distinct and refreshing. I've been telling all my friends about this amazing collection.

Brilliant.

My goodness, do I love this little collection. I feel the compulsion to re-read it. I never felt sadder when I realized that Miller's stream of poems would soon be ending. My heart is all a flutter when I think of the emotions and events that Kei Miller captured and gave birth to on these pages.A Light Song of Light is truly dichotomous; the poems are even divided between 'Day Time' and 'Night Time'. There are poems that are absolute joys to read aloud and let Miller's Jamaican-influenced syntax roll off the tongue. But then there are times that Kei Miller made me audibly gasp -- my heart ached as I read "A Smaller Song" and reached the line:And on the phone this mother agrees to her son that nasty people must dead. And in this moment, a son knows that his mother does not love him.There is so much pain and heartache embedded, sometimes hidden and other times in plain view, in these poems, but what truly makes this such a memorable read is Miller's dogged insistence for hope. In "Epilogue," concluding the chapter, "A Short History of Beds We Have Slept in Together," after a string of describing the beds he has shared with his lover, he states:Let us not repeat the easy lies about eternityand love. We have fallen out of loveBut rather than wallow in the demise of a relationship, he turns it on its head and rejoices how "we are always resurrected/into it".It is fun, it is heavy, it is frank, it is sarcastic. I am in love with this collection. If you have at least one iota of interest in poetry, you owe it to yourself to pick this up, carve out a few hours to curl around the verses, and introduce yourself to Kei Miller.