Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer
NESTA ANDREWS' 'Trench Town Poet: I Dare To Dream Again' is a large collection, with 63 mostly short poems over 87 pages, making for still a relatively slim volume.
It is a double title of sorts, as the book opens with 'The Trench Town Poet (which speaks of a "semi-automatic pen") and I Dare To Dream Again comes at about the half-way mark. The book is very strong on the word 'dream', which comes in at least nine pieces between the two title poems.
But that pales in comparison to the number of question marks which permeate the book, as Andrews asks questions of not only the reader, but himself.
At points, Andrews takes a very prosaic approach to his poetry, which does not depend on rhyme scheme, then turns a fantastic line.
GHETTO BAPTISM
This is a pattern which begins from the second poem in the book, Ghetto Baptism, in which Andrews begins:
"Have you had this baptism?
A ghetto baptism
Reluctantly immersed in a crude reality"
Then he asks if she will put on that black dress "that has become too familiar/Though it never refuses to hug her shaking frame".
Unfortunately, Ghetto Baptism also contains a flaw that crops up a couple of times in the book - a spelling error, in which he refers to 'heavy bowlers' at the altar. Since it is a stretch to believe that someone is picking up clones of Shane Warne and taking them to the Lord, it is most likely that the reference should have been to 'heavy boulders'.
DREAM STREET
There are times when Andrews' lyrical lines come early, such as in Dream Street, where he makes the well put definition:
"Dream Street
Is where little girls who have never owned Barbie dolls
Come with their broken dolls
Crying children they barely gave birth to ... "
In Arise Graduates of the Ghetto University, Andrews again clips the hurdle of language as he speaks of "surreal distance", but immediately follows it with the well put observation "as prodigies cross the road of ambition..."
While Andrews sticks mainly to gritty 'street' issues and, of course, dreams, in Trench Town Poet: I Dare To Dream Again he delves into the joys of nature in Did You Stop To Look or Listen to Nature and matters of the loins in If Making Love Is An Art.
Music is synonymous with Trench Town and naturally Andrews invokes the Marley name. However, he also honours honorable poets, including Claude McKay, Derek Walcott, Edward Baugh and WB Yeats, with individual poems for Lorna Goodison (Love Doctor, Bush Doctor, Poet) and Miss Lou (Homecoming For Mama).
Dancehall terms 'Jiggy Jiggy' and 'Wehdi Wehdi' make it into Healing Poem Thou Art Loosed and in Searching For Kingfish Andrews and show that Andrews is 'up to the time' with events. He makes a rare visit into Jamaican language in A Di Riddim, placed toward the end of the collection.
Trench Town Poet: I Dare To Dream Again is dedicated to Andrews' father, George Andrews, brother Douglas Andrews and cousin Granville Goldson. And he finds good lines for his father in The Journey Continues ("I decided that if I couldn't write a poem,/I would just read the poetry you lived"). There was also a poem for his cousin in Dry-Eyed Goodbye ("I will not burden your casket with raining clichés ... ").
