Tanya Shirley during her engaging reading from her debut poetry collection 'She Who Sleeps With Bones' at the Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts, UWI, Mona, on Sunday morning. - Photo by Mel Cooke

After Tanya Shirley had read two poems from her debut collection on Peepal Tree Press She Who Sleeps With Bones on Sunday morning, she smiled as she noted a certain lack of poetic staying power which she has observed.

Shirley told the nearly full house at the Philip Sherlock Centre, UWI, Mona, that she had noticed that at poetry readings the applause normally stops after the first two poems; and they had applauded heartily for the opening pair about fear (starting with 'A Chant Against Fear') which had gone before.

If Shirley had had any doubts about the stamina of her work or the audience, they were dispelled by the strong applause that followed 'Journey', a series of haikus which included 'Tongue' ("your tongue is a humming bird/pulling pollen out of me") and 'Swirl' ("sated we stumble to bed/the seeding spilling out of us").

'Victorian Romance' was her version of a love poem and Shirley followed with one about when the love does not work out, the women especially groaning at the ending:

"I have lived in broken places

Because it was enough to be with you

When were you going to tell me about her?"

Shirley, the wonderful combination of an excellent writer and reader of her work, said that, her grandfather, who had sirens on his car, was one of the persons who made her want to write. "The world needed to know about this man," Shirley said. She said that, for the past few years, grandpa has been saying that he is in the departure lounge and "we are very happy that his plane has not come in yet."

Tears from the front row

He was there, to clamber to his feet and open his arms wide before Shirley read 'Grandpa in the Departure Lounge'. And there were tears from the front row (reserved for family members) during the poem, which began "Black old man, you are so beautiful" and, in a series of short parts, projected how she will react to his death ("At your nine night I will bathe in white rum") and the contraction of his life's circle ("Your domino group dwindled").

"Old man, you are going to make a mad woman out of me," Shirley concluded.

"I have two more poems to go. If I go through these without crying, whoopee!" Shirley said, speaking about a reading in The Bahamas where she wept. She made it through the first 'The Shifting Ground', about the relationship with her mother, which closed with the possibility of it ending physically ("how could I walk with no ground beneath me/when already so much of the world is shifting?") without obvious tears.

And when Shirley read the final poem for her grandmother, who died of cancer in 2001, her voice trembled when she said "we go outside to cry, staying close to the doorway/in case we are summoned for your final breath". But it did not break; it strengthened and she closed the reading "tell him again, grandma, this is nothing".

The standing ovation which met the end of Shirley's reading could have been read as the public's equivalent to Dr Michael Bucknor's conclusion, in officially launching She Who Sleeps With Bones, that the publication marks the arrival on the literary scene of someone in the tradition of outstanding female poets from the region, including Olive Senior. In addition, he said that Shirley joins the "strong, distinct, vigorous voices" of persons such as Kei Miller and Marlon James.

A treat in itself

Bucknor's treatise on Shirley's work was a treat in itself, as he pointed out "the use of the unexpected turn of phrase" and her "reinvigoration of the taken for granted". And in a shower of serendipity, as Bucknor mentioned the book's second section, 'Waiting For Rain', there was the sound of rain on the auditorium's roof.

He examined 'Inheritance', about Shirley's relationship with her mother through the gift (or curse) of foresight, as well as with her sister in 'The Distance Between Us'. In the latter, the significance of the death of a bird her sister found and nursed back to life is expanded to include the entire family. After Shirley's sister left, the bird was found "cold and stiff under your window". However, Bucknor pointed out that in Shirley's poem, it was not only the bird that missed the sister:

"We never wanted you to learn

In some of your absences some of us died"

"Shirley's poetry is multi-layered. Consequently, the surprises are ongoing," Bucknor said.

The launch of She Who Sleeps With Bones was hosted by Professor Mervyn Morris with the Bongani Drummers contributing good music. And in giving thanks all around, Shirley introduced Solomon Sinclair, who did the cover art for her book.