To Us, All Flowers Are Roses: POEMS (Illinois Poetry) [Paperback]

Lorna Goodison (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Goodison advances from strength to strength. Her sixth collection finds her focusing the diamond lens of her incantatory verse on the culture and people of her homeland in the Caribbean and gives us a book full of pieces well worthy of anthologizing. For example, "Mother, the Great Stones Got to Move," a fierce call for history to be rectified made by the voices of the poor, demanding the "half that has never been told . . . our side of the story, exact figures, / headcounts, burial artifacts, documents, lists, maps / showing our way up through the stars." For example, the marvelous botanical catalog from which the book takes its name. For example, the narrative of Annie Pengelly, used by her mistress as a foot-warmer, for which circumstance "history owes Annie / thousands of nights / of sleep upon a feather bed. / Soft feathers from the breast of / a free, soaring bird." Taken altogether, these poems reinforce each other's many strengths and constitute a long song of struggle and survival, of inhumanity and human love. Patricia Monaghan

Review

Annie Pengelly
Bag-a-wire
Birth Stone
Bulls Bay, Lucea
Bun Down Cross Roads
Calling One Sweet Psalmist
Coir
Concert
Deep-sea Diving
Elephant
From The Book Of Local Miracles Largely Unrecorded
Garden Of The Women Once Fallen: ... Pumpkins
Garden Of The Women Once Fallen: Of Bitterness Herb
Garden Of The Women Once Fallen: Thyme
Ground Doves
In City Gardens Grow No Roses As We Know Them
In The Mountains Of The Moon, Uganda
Inna Calabash
The Lace Seller
Missing The Mountains
Morning, Morning Angel Mine
Mother, The Great Stones Got To Move
Mysteries
Name Change: Morant Bay Uprising
Nayga Bikkle
O Africans
October In The Kingdom Of The Poor
Of Used-moon Stars
Outside The Gates
Papacita
The Prophet Jeremiah Speaks
Some Things You Do Not Know About Me
Songs Of The Fruits And Sweets Of Childhood
Speak Of The Advent Of New Light
To The Creator Of All Bodies Of Water In This Instance Bays
To Us, All Flowers Are Roses
Trident
White Birds
The Woman Speaks To The Man Who Has Employed Her Son
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Product Details

• Paperback: 88 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press (June 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252064593
• ISBN-13: 978-0252064593
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,064,925 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compassion and Dignity, April 16, 2003

By 

Geoffrey Philp (Miami, Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: To Us, All Flowers Are Roses: POEMS (Illinois Poetry) (Paperback)

Lorna Goodison is one of those rare poets who can seemingly write from the depths of her soul without slipping into sentimentality. Her craft is so fine, so sure, it is breathtaking to turn each page with her and go further into her beautiful sensuous world.