Six Caribbean po­ets from the Toron­to/South­ern On­tario re­gion have pub­lished an an­thol­o­gy, Ro­raima. Sev­en­ty-five po­ems are pub­lished by Roop Misir, Ken Ram­phal, Ram Jages­sar, Har­ry Per­saud, Habeeb Al­li and Naraine Datt. The an­thol­o­gy breaks new ground ex­pos­ing a vi­sion of Caribbean writ­ing that goes be­yond wal­low­ing in nos­tal­gia about for­mer lives in Guyana, Trinidad and To­ba­go and oth­er parts of the Caribbean. A re­lease says: "Ro­raima is a rich and var­ied col­lec­tion of po­ems on many as­pects of life in Cana­da and the per­spec­tives of for­mer im­mi­grants who have adapt­ed to life in a large, dif­fer­ent and de­vel­oped na­tion."

About the po­ets

Har­ry Per­saud

Har­ry Per­saud, a re­tired an­thro­pol­o­gist, says, "These po­ems come from a Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty that has been set­tled in Cana­da for many decades, and has a lifestyle that is most­ly un­known to peo­ple in our for­mer Caribbean home­lands. "We find that even with­in Cana­da we here in Toron­to may not know much about our cousins in places like Win­nipeg, with a huge Caribbean pop­u­la­tion of over 50,000, and they al­so don't know us."

Ram Jages­sar

Ram Jages­sar, a re­tired news­pa­per ed­i­tor, com­ment­ed all his po­ems are true and tak­en di­rect­ly from the re­al-world lives of Caribbean peo­ple he has known in Cana­da. They re­flect the move­ment of the new im­mi­grant. "We are not the same peo­ple who came off the air­plane a few decades ago, as our per­spec­tive has been widened. This is home now, the place where your chil­dren sleep. We need to tell how we live here and now," said Jages­sar

Habeeb Al­li

Habeeb Al­li, a Mus­lim imam, said: "My po­ems re­flect my odyssey from a new im­mi­grant to a con­text of re­li­gious life in Cana­da. I am at­tempt­ing to in­tro­duce an en­light­ened Is­lam­ic per­spec­tive, for as you know Caribbean Mus­lims are gen­er­al­ly quite mod­er­ate. And I am ex­plor­ing the ro­man­tic con­cept of love with­in Is­lam."

Naraine Datt

Datt's po­ems re­flect in­ter­na­tion­al in­ter­ests and at­ti­tudes for a wide range of read­ers. He ex­plores every­thing from the Nu­clear Holo­caust to do­mes­tic is­sues be­tween man and wife. Datt, a re­tired school teacher, ex­press­es lib­er­al sym­pa­thies tak­ing up the cause of peo­ple whether they are abo­rig­i­nal Cana­di­ans, South Africans blacks or Rod­ney King.

Roop Misir

Misir's po­ems ex­plore a va­ri­ety of top­ics in­clud­ing mem­o­ries of his na­tive Guyana, na­ture (sea­sons), shared cul­ture, be­lief sys­tems, spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, moral­i­ty, hu­man kind­ness, pol­i­tics and world peace. Some po­ems make read­ers re­flect, oth­ers stim­u­late thought-but all are in­tend­ed to make the world a bet­ter place.

Ken Ram­phal

Ken Ram­phal's po­ems deal with his feel­ings as a new im­mi­grant. He tries to come to terms with the ir­rev­o­ca­ble past and with the in­grat­i­tude he en­coun­tered. On a more hope­ful note, he de­scribes the joy of be­ing with his grand­daugh­ters, who rep­re­sent a brighter fu­ture. The ex­pe­ri­ence is cathar­tic.

More in­fo

• Ro­raima is avail­able on www.ama­zon.com at www.ama­zon.com/Ro­raima-an­thol­o­gy-emerg­ing-Caribbean. It will al­so be avail­able from the au­thors and lo­cal venues in the Greater Toron­to area. Con­tact Ram Jages­sar at ram.jages­sar@gmail.com or at 416-289-9088.