Oxford Poets S.
1 total work
James Berry was born in Jamaica and came to England with the early Caribbean settlers in 1948. He is well known as a poet and critic and has published several collections of poetry, including Fractured Circles and Lucy's Letters and Loving . He has edited News for Babylon , an anthology of West Indian-British poetry. In 1981 he won first prize in the National Poetry Competition. Chain of Days is about the colonized, the colonizer, and the person that emerges, and draws on the experiences of both new and old worlds. From Africa, slavery, colonization, and life in Americ a and Britain, the poet gathers and reassesses a past and present and reclaims a self. Although the tone is sometimes angry, a celebration of diversity is constantly at play. Above all, Chain of Days displays a vital human sympathy and sense of wonder.