Elizabeth Rose Murray

Posts Tagged ‘jacob sam la rose’

Magnitude
II
In a lesson on trying to make the abstract more concrete,
one of my students, a Guyanese boy, late teens,
shares a draft in which he’s counting
the breaths of his sleeping girlfriend.
He’s met her father, shook his hand –
weeks later, the girl explains
that her Akan blood arrows back up to royalty,
that the boy is the son of [...]

Magnitude*
I
There are a million grains in a 20 kilogram sack of rice.
Give or take. It’s a hard enough number to imagine,
the kind that slips through the mind’s fingers, like digging
your hands in that same sack, trying to feel
for individuals; the kind of counting that surpasses
fingers, bigger than the mind’s computational eye,
like the full, unending [...]

The second part of Magnitude scales the same important themes from a global perspective to the situation/experience of one person. The second part increases the impact and the message. Read the review Part II to get to grips with some fantastic and important current day poetry.

My review of the first part of Magnitude by Jacob Sam-La Rose, commissioned by the Arts Council, England, can be read here. A fascinating insight into the struggle to understand the vast scale of the slave trade and forced migration of African people, it´s well worth a read. Interested and want to hear Jacob [...]