There is an Anger That Moves

Kei Miller

• Publisher: Carcanet Poetry
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781857549454
• eBook ISBN: 9781847776020
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

The six sequences of There Is an Anger that Moves travel from Jamaica to England and back. A mother's heart is broken; men fall in love secretly; people dance until they die. Religion haunts these disbelieving poems which move sometimes to the measure of a hymn, sometimes to the cadence of a Baptist sermon. Each swells with its own conviction, even when that conviction is doubt. Miller makes us believe in the power of unexpected things: the colour orange, broken coffins, ice cream and in the transforming power of poetry. From this book Kei Miller emerges as one of the most compelling and subtle new voices from the Caribbean.

V

Testament

Book of Genesis

Suppose there was a book full only of the word,

let – from whose clipped sound all things began: fir

and firmament, feather, the first whale – and suppose

we could scroll through its pages every day

to find and pronounce a Let meant only for us –

we would stumble through the streets with open books,

eyes crossed from too much reading; we would speak

in auto-rhyme, the world would echo itself – and still

we’d continue in rounds, saying let and let and let

until even silent dreams had been allowed.

Book of Exodus

In the cold lobby that could remind a man

of hospitals the way most people sitting

numb, as if the clock on the wall

have a dumb power over them

Icilda, like she practising

for when they call her name, says –

this letter come from my favourite niece

who send for me that I should spend

three restful weeks in foreign. The poor child

was worried bout how I coping

now that Mr Wilson gone higher

than any plane could take him;

Jesus was his only visa.

And this here is character witness signed

by Lucius Thomas (JP) who does testify

that me, Icilda Gilzene, born O’Brien

and married name Wilson, never miss church

on purpose, or ginnal on purpose, or lie

if it was not for my children’s bread.

This last piece of paper bears proof

to a portion of land in Clarendon

and a house my dead husband raised

from the ground. I have no document

though, for the rose apples that grow there

but I swear to them and how they hold me

from temptation of foreign sweetness.

Icilda like she practising says – remember Moses

and the mighty Pharaoh, more powerful

than US presidents. And how he was reduced

by the plague of snakes and frogs, by the rivers

turned to blood. Be warned of this –

I know that same God.

Icilida like she practising

only stop when they call her name

she walk to the counter with a faith

that could make the widest waters part.

Icilda says – Good eveling, ma’am,

please harden not your heart.

Book of Leviticus

I

Pigeons fly through the subway as omens –

God’s postmen underground, hitting the roof,

startled to find the sky’s end. And sad,

as if impossible letters were tied

to their feet.

II

A woman once pulled a thorn out

from her lover’s neck; he bled

like a flood.

The woman has since placed the thorn

into her own neck – has become a dove –

has flown to a nearby tree where she is still

sitting on a grey branch,

her feathered breast vibrating

a gurgled elegy.

III

Then after the confetti and trumpets, after

the cartwheelers and the march of men

on stilts, after every flag has flapped and every

anthem has been sung,

a great torc...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• I: In This New Country
• II: The Broken (I)
• III: Tongues and Prophecies
• IV: The Broken (II)
• V: Testament
• VI: There Is an Anger that Moves
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Caribbean writing from Carcanet Press
• Copyright