God in the Songs of Birds Poetry 1997-2011 by Amon Saba Saakana

This is Saakana's third book of poetry; the first, Sun SONG, Was published in 1973 by the now deceased poetryophile, Paul Bre-man; the second, Tones & CoLours, by this press in 1985. The poetry in this book was written in the UK in 1997-1999, and

- Trinidad & Tobago during the period of 2002-2011. The tone of the poetry is primarily narrative and impressionistic. Saakana records his confrontation with hilltop valleys, impressions of people & land-scape, flora & fauna, truth & lie, all, as he says, "in the making of man." Yet the book is as much about the Pan-African world, as it is about the specifics of a community of spirit in Trinidad:

life has led me to points of crossing in the desert where knowledge grows like date palms in summer

A large part of the texts is the celebration of woman in all her primordial strength as mother, wife, daughter & seeker of light & equilibrium in a world of unchanged manpower, violence, rape and abuse.

Yet as mother, housemaker & lover she plays an epicentral role in Saakana's poetic world.