Author Opal Palmer Adisa.

Title: Eros Muse - poems and essays
Author: Opal Palmer Adisa
Publisher: Africa World Press, Inc.
Reviewer: Barbara Nelson

Jamaican-born poet and prose writer Opal Palmer Adisa says in her book, Eros Muse, "Writing is an orgasmic rapture that allows me to participate and enjoy life on multiple levels, through many people and at different periods in time."

She loves writing. Her first stories, she says, were composed as a child in her native country while she "laid nestled in the tall grasses, peeling away the sharp skin of the cane with my teeth and feeling deep pleasure as the sweet, sticky juice trickled down my cheeks onto my neck."

Early in life she was attracted to sounds and "movements caught hold of my breath ... market women balancing huge baskets on their heads ..." and she read and memorised poems by British and American poets. However, it was not until she moved to New York at age 16 that she read a book or poem written by a black person.

Sketches about black life

"I was introduced to Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks and Jean Toomer," she writes. Jean Toomer, an American writer (1894-1967) was a major figure of the Harlem Renaissance. He is known for one work, Cane - a collection of short stories, poems and sketches about black life in rural Georgia and the urban north. That book, Cane, was most responsible for Opal's decision to become a writer.

Through the African American writers she discovered Caribbean and African writers when she went on to Hunter College. Later, she met Trinidadian painter and poet LeRoy Clarke and heard Sonia Sanchez, "a black woman ... spewing fiery words, resonating truth." These people launched her career as a poet and writer.

Some years later, University of the West Indies teachers, Mervyn Morris and Kamau Brathwaite, mentored her. Then she decided to incorporate the Jamaican language into her work after she studied the work of Louise Bennett.

Opal Palmer Adisa's book is a series of essays, poems and journals. In over 159 pages she tells of her love affair with her muse - " ... it was not i who went

in search of his ardor

i ignored him

for as long as I could but he always shadowed me"

She is a Caribbean poet and prose writer and mother of three. Her essays tell of her dual role as mother and writer and how she juggles the tasks.

She vows to use her writing in service of her community, "because that is how I was reared", and to ensure that the Caribbean will remain an independent, safe place for generations yet unborn.

In her Journal Entries she brings the reader into some intimate experiences:

"March 1985 - I thought writing a poem and completing a collection was a miracle, but this child, my precious Shola, is my best poem yet.

"April 1985 - I wrote poems while Shola suckles at my breast. I often fall asleep in the rocking chair, Shola asleep in my arms, milk trickling from my breasts while my poems float around, a halo that protects us."

Opal is a talented writer with seven titles to her credit, including her first novel, It Begins With Tears (1997) set in Kristoff village in rural Jamaica.