
'As Caribbean Woman move into the oras of their own consciousness, wonderful new icons emerge to join Gort, Tacky, Zumbi, TL, Galahad & the Midnight Robber - Tia, Fola, Harriet’s Daughter, Sister Stark and the Mary’s: Prince, Seacole, Wiggins, Wages, Yellow Mary, MaryAnn of the Shifting Sand, GypsyMary and Mariana Grajales, to welcome a few.
Now for the first time we havin a Dread Mary. The Black Medusa of this new voice in Caribbean poetry, this Brit born Bajan international, is Dorothea Smartt, who will tangle you up & burn you to stone
Here she is
standing ready
to rip to claw to beat
you to your monster self.
Narrow the focus
block the light.
In your own tall shadow
crouch quiver whimper.
Let your hair grow long. Rage
down to skin and bone. Rage
red-hot-blue-cold
tearing you. Solitary in the dark.
And that’s only page 65' - Kamau Brathwaite
Dorothea Smartt, born and raised in London, is of Barbadian heritage. Described as ‘accessible and dynamic’, her poetry appears in several journals and ground-breaking anthologies."