By Tanya Batson-Savage, Staff ReporterISLAND GIRLS Poetry is a booklet which supposedly celebrates the 'island girls', whoever those mythical creatures be. The back cover of the collection of poems by Vernon Films declares that 'Island girls have danced their beauty, echoed their voices, pictured their faces, and won with their minds. This book celebrates the poetry island girls are'.
These few lines should adequately prepare one for the level of poetry that is found within the pages.
In its defence, it must be noted that Island Girls Poetry is an attractive package. The covers are black, with red text on the front and white on the back. The inner pages are equally easy on the eyes, with black and white pages and alternately white or black text. Additionally, some of the white pages feature watermarked images from the Jamaican landscape.
Unfortunately, it is the content of the pages which truly counts. Island Girls Poetry contains 40 unimaginative poems. A few of the poems could benefit greatly from varying degrees of editing, though far too many would have been better left at the mercy of the delete button. Fortunately, with the exception of 'Jamaican Beauty', they are short, with 'Dolreen' being only three lines.
DOESN'T UNDERSTAND WOMEN
The poems show a marked lack of understanding of women, which seems to stem from an inability to see beyond the physical. Several of these poems, attempt to focus on 'island girls' as sexy beautiful creatures. 'Jamaican Beauty' is one such. This poem attempts to describe Jamaican women with metaphorical likenesses to Jamaica's physical beauty. Like the places chosen, such as Blue Mountain Peak and Dunn's River Falls, the attempts at describing beauty are amateurishly clichéd and sometimes simply ridiculous.
Regardless of how hard one may find, it is impossible to find the possible compliment (and sometimes the meaning) behind descriptions such as forehead, facing out spindly eyebrow/ lines like spectacular hiking trails, eyelashes like Fern/Gully, or ears like half sunk Port/Royal as found in 'Jamaican Beauty'.
To further complicate the travesty of meanings which occur in this booklet are some of the liberties taken with the language in order to create predictable and unimpressive rhymes. These often make worthy arguments for the revoking of poetic licence. Of course, some of what could be interpreted as poetic licence may simply have resulted from unfamiliarity with English. The presence of phrases such as 'morning due' and referring to Deon Hemmings 'standing bold as one' tend to suggest the latter.
PUNCTUATION BOO-BOOS
Films seems to have fallen in love with full stops and puns. The former he tends to drop at the end of phrases, rendering hardly comprehensible lines simply baffling. Fortunately, the puns are sometimes effectively used, though he seems to be unable to sustain an image or use it in a manner to sustain his point.
Quite a few of the poems, such as 'Full Figure' and 'Slim Girls', also take time to describe sex and, to some degree, sexiness. Films' descriptions of sex, however, romp with the crudely leering rather than the sultry and sexy. Although he manages to avoid being glaringly crude with the use of a few puns, the woman is never allowed to be her own subject in these poems.
As such, Island Girls Poetry offers nothing to those who are looking for some good poetry. It is however, easy on the eyes, if not on the mind.
