John Robert Lee – författare

International giants, regional stars, local heroes and self-published unknowns all have their place in this masterful author index from the eastern Caribbean island of Saint Lucia. It also includes those who have written about Saint Lucia and Caribbean writers whose work has influenced the development of Saint Lucian life and literature. It’s a bibliography which, in its all-embracing reach (It includes funeral programmes and recipe books), reflects the creative, cultural, political and economic world of this small island. In bringing Saint Lucia to life, it is a magnificent resource for discovery and research, beyond its most famous son, the Nobel Laureate writer Derek Walcott.

John Robert Lee has been described as the foremost Caribbean Christian writer of his generation with a truly incarnational view of faith, anchored in the reality of human experience and expressed in richly textured images of Caribbean landscapes, dress, street life, music, dance and his native Creole language.The selected poems in Sighting and other poems of faith mark the pilgrims progress of this writer over three decades. In the poems he sees his life and experiences through the lens of the Christian faith, yet, in the words of Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, his Saint Lucian contemporary, you dont get in the poetry anything that is, in a sense, preachy or self-advertising in terms of its morality.His is a poetry that is rooted in the flesh and blood reality of his times, even as he looks beyond to the transcendent promises of his faith.St. Lucia, Boston, the Haitian earthquake of 2010 are the scenes to which he turns his perceptive gaze, with a poetry that is remarkably mature. The poetry is accessible to anyone who loves a craftsman who turns the language into startling and provocative images.

In his fifth collection with Peepal Tree Press, After Poems, Psalms, John Robert Lee achieves a sense of spirit, insight and empathy with these celebratory and contemplative poems. "e;In the way that we might look to the psalms for strength and solace, After Poems, Psalms should be received as a gift, a balm and a cause for celebration. Here is a companion to assist spirit wrestlers and lovers of poetry in their quest to identify the numinous in both the human and the natural worlds. "e; Lorna Goodison