Off Colour [Paperback]

Jackie Kay (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1999

These poems explore illness, sickness and health, past and present, in a dynamic and original way. They examine not only the sick body but the sick mind and sick society, racism and prejudice. It is Jackie Kay''s third collection.'

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

At a time when many poets are heavily influenced by one another and by the milieu in which they have matured, it is unusual to find a poetic voice that is utterly distinct. Kay, a Scottish poet born in Glasgow, has such a voice, writing with strong reference to Scottish speech patterns and paying equal tribute to her black heritage (she was adopted as an infant by white parents). Kay dons various personae in this third collection: an invalid ("My blood sugar is soaring. My tongue is so sugary/ I flatter my enemies"), an ailing mother cared for by her daughter ("She is that guid tae me so she is/ an Am a burden tae her, I know Am ur"), a dental patient ("every cavity an excuse for meeting;/ floss is the long length of string/ that keeps us parted"), a man in the act of abusing a woman, rationalizing his actions ("Christ, the President/ gets it, so so kin I"). Kay's variety of roles and voices is astonishing. Recommended work from a gifted young poet.AJudy Clarence, California State Univ. Lib., Hayward
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From Kirkus Reviews

Kay returns to some of the themes of her earlier collectionsher cultural confusions about being a black woman raised by a white Scottish couple, her general social consciousness, and her redeeming mordant humor in the face of sickness and death. Where It Hurts is a self-portrait of a complainer, though one with real pain who finds her body a bloody battlefield and the only hope a great thumping death. The poets obsession with disease runs throughout the volume, as does her fixation on teeth. Four poems titled Virus, spread through the book, list various types of the microbes, describe the symptoms of leprosy, address the host (in Scots dialect), and establish the sexual link. Teeth describes the perfect pearls of an illegal alien whos taken away at night by the police; Crown and Country imagines a country with wonderful dentistry. Kay also speaks in the voices of others, not often very convincingly: the Hottentot Venus barely penetrates the real cultural meaning of that figures exploitation; Christian Sanderson, a Scottish mulatto convicted for stealing 16 shillings, blames poverty for her crime; Gambia, an African kitchen maid, testifies against her mistress for brutality; and, in the best of these,Bed, the poets mother, in her Scots dialect, speaks from her invalidism of her daughters care. Kay, fearing dismissal as a whiner, lacerates herself in Characteristics of Sadness, in which she admonishes herself to Cut the sniveling you sap. And thats the general spirit in this sobering volume, though Kay adds a handful of socially aware poems that are predictable at bestone mocking the hypocrisy of the church (Church Invisible), another a disposable ditty on race (The Broons Bairns Black). Occasionally melodic, Kays seldom challenges the reader in her verse, though she smartly tempers her anger with erratic rhymes and rhythmic complaints. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 64 pages
• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books Ltd (April 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1852244208
• ISBN-13: 978-1852244200
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,572,154 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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