Head in the air, feet on the ground, gardens, household objects, frogs, dogs, birds, kites and a host of other flora, fauna, rocks and stones find their place in the fertile mind of a poet, painter, sculptor and musician who has lived long enough to accumulate wisdom.
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Sometimes the messages offer perceptions that have never been seen so clearly before, sometimes they hint at the elusive just out of reach or sight. Always, though “possibilities beckon”, and the little poems, haiku of an individual, invented kind, frequently offer metaphysical graspings both in the philosophical sense and in the way the metaphysical poets yoked the seemingly disparate into perfect sense.
There is an acute awareness of plays of light and shade, textures, the touchable and the surrounding world of sound. As in Greaves’ paintings, shifts in perspective and proportion offer upheavals of the habitual view. The gaze looks inward as much as out – at the processes of thought, memory and imagination. The pleasures are both singular and collective: in the polished economy of phrase, form and the moments of surprise, and in the accumulating sense of entering a world that it is a privilege to share.
Not least of the pleasures are the eight pieces of original artwork: ink, brush and pen drawings and collages that offer an alternative vision to the poems.
Stanley Greaves was born in Guyana. He is one of the Caribbean’s most distinguished artists and an accomplished classical guitarist. He currently lives in Barbados.
Stanley Greaves was born in Guyana. He studied Art in the UK and was head of the Division of Creative Arts at the University of Guyana for several years.
