Miller’s Poems Published In Sargasso Journal

Bermudian poet Nancy Anne Miller has three poems in the latest edition of Sargasso Journal, which is published by the University of Puerto Rico.

A spokesperson said, “Bermudian poet Nancy Anne Miller’s poems have been included in the latest edition of Sargasso Journal which is published by the University of Puerto Rico.

“Sargasso Journal defines itself as follows: Sargasso, A Journal Of Literature, Language, & Culture is based at the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras. We publish critical essays, interviews, translations, book and film reviews, visual art, as well as poetry and short stories.

“Sargasso’s publications feature academic and creative work written by or about the people of the Caribbean region and its multiple diasporas.”

“This recent edition is dedicated to Mervyn Coleridge Alleyne [Trinidad and Tobago, 13 June- 23 November 2016] He was a sociolinguist, creolist, and dialectologist whose work focused on the creole languages of the Caribbean.

“He attended Queen’s Royal College in Port-of-Spain and later won a scholarship to the fledgling University College of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica which he entered in 1953.

“After graduating from Mona, Alleyne obtained a PhD from the University of Strasbourg, France. He returned to the University of the West Indies [UWI], Mona as a lecturer in 1959, and was made Professor of Sociolinguistics in 1982. He returned to his homeland for a brief spell and lectured at the St Augustine campus of the UWI. He was a Visiting Professor at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras.

“The introduction to this edition of Sargasso Journal states: Mervyn Alleyne’s academic legacy was shaped by the pursuit of interests that helped to define the study of the Caribbean, and his vision of the region remains inspirational and highly relevant today. Spanning a period of more than fifty years, his scholarly work is characterized by an embrace of humanism, the careful analysis of evidence, an accessible writing style, investment in constructive critique, and in-depth engagement with multi- and interdisciplinary perspectives.

“The latter perspectives are informed by engagement with the work of other academics and his own contributions to an array of disciplines, including linguistics, cultural studies, history, literary studies, and anthropology.”

“Bermudian poet Nancy Anne Miller published three poems in the edition. Two of which are the following:

Jigsaw

Like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle,
reefs around the island, a part

of the whole on the tablecloth
of the Atlantic. I sit on the beach,

each wave crested forms into
the White Cliffs of Dover, origins

of the island culture when ship
wrecked ancestors landed from

a boat bashed apart like a native paw
paw, scattered seeds from which I grew.

Sea salted with an inner rhythm
perpetually rocked by the undertow,

the low pitch sound of a pull back
tide down into the celestial deep.

Angelfish flashed light like stars where I
moon walked the sands below, buoyant.

Winter Survival

Let the bright white light
cascading through your home
in search of colour, show you,
you always wanted to paint
your sorry trashcans battered
silver grey from a long war

of use, the colour of a mango.
When you spray the liquid, you
become a hibiscus blooming a petal.
When you hold up the orange tin
can top, it is a shield against the cold.
And then when you must also colour

the condiment shelves yellow, it
is like the island sun reviving
your own senses. The island must
always be near. More so in the snow,
heaped like a rolled up canvas against
your home’s edge which invites filling.

Ms. Miller said, “It is always a privilege to be included in Post Colonial Dialects. The conversation around the vast influences affecting and defining the Caribbean Islands. So many talented writers have made this genre possible, including Derek Walcott as the spearhead, the genius that opened the path for us all to follow.

“I remember flying to Bermuda on a Delta flight reading his collection Midsummer and being stunned that he had put island life into literature, validated it as a subject, and in his case, in a Shakespearean capacity. Much good has come out of his prodigious path cutting efforts. I also identify with the visual language in his poems as I, like Walcott, also have trained as a painter. This visual acuity is significantly well suited for writing about the very imagistic Caribbean.”

The spokesperson said, “In 1992, Walcott won the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Nobel committee described his work as “a poetic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment.”

“Nancy Anne Miller is a Bermudian poet with nine collections. Latitude, Longitude is her latest. [Kelsay Books 2021]. She is published internationally in journals such as Edinburgh Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Salzburg Review, Agenda, The Fiddlehead, The Caribbean Writer, PREE. She has an M.Litt. in Creative Writing from Univ. of Glasgow, is a MacDowell Fellow, and Bermuda Arts Council Grant recipient.”

#BermudaPoetry #GoodNews #NancyAnneMiller

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