Shiv­a­nee Ram­lochan

The But­ter­fly Ho­tel

Roger Robin­son

Peepal Tree Press, 2013

Roger Robin­son's third col­lec­tion, The But­ter­fly Ho­tel, is pref­aced by this quo­ta­tion from the Amer­i­can po­et, Ira Co­hen: "Must I read the Sci­ence Times to know that the Monarch's mi­gra­tion is a frag­ile jour­ney?" This con­tem­pla­tion spring­boards a se­ries of sur­pris­ing­ly buoy­ant of­fer­ings on lo­ca­tion, re­lo­ca­tion and the sub­se­quent sens­es of loss and gain. Robin­son's po­ems are the syn­cret­ic and lay­ered prod­ucts of this place, as well as an­oth­er.

Prin­ci­pal­ly, the "oth­er" lo­ca­tion to which the po­et hear­kens is Brix­ton, a dis­trict in Lon­don, and the first tem­po­rary hous­ing of the 1948 Win­drush gen­er­a­tion of Ja­maican mi­grants to the Unit­ed King­dom. In ad­di­tion to nav­i­gat­ing a black British/Caribbean sen­si­bil­i­ty of Brix­ton, Robin­son un­earths rev­e­la­tions of place and dis­place­ment on a ma­jor to mi­nor scale, with res­o­nances in of­ten-un­ex­pect­ed cor­ners of the globe. The po­ems al­most al­ways re­turn to the Caribbean fir­ma­ment, with T&T as their lode­stone of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion.Robin­son, a Trinida­di­an writer and per­former, has two pre­vi­ous col­lec­tions of po­et­ry: Suit­case, pub­lished in 2004, and Suck­le, pub­lished in 2009. Suck­le was the re­cip­i­ent of The Peo­ple's Book Prize, a UK-based award that fo­cus­es on high­light­ing new and undis­cov­ered work. He al­so re­leased an al­bum of spo­ken-word works in 2004.

Po­et and crit­ic Kwame Dawes, as­so­ciate ed­i­tor of po­et­ry at Peepal Tree Press, the book's pub­lish­er, has de­scribed Robin­son's po­et­ic strengths as be­ing most ev­i­dent "in the po­em of nar­ra­tive... the work that presents a sto­ry of un­com­pli­cat­ed plot move­ment, but quite so­phis­ti­cat­ed char­ac­ter." The po­ems in The But­ter­fly Ho­tel bear out the hall­marks of nar­ra­tive tenac­i­ty to which Dawes refers: they are sto­ries, each of them wait­ing to be spo­ken aloud, in which vo­cal per­for­mance they are al­most guar­an­teed to have their finest lus­tre.This is not to sug­gest that the pieces do not hold up well on the page; they do. Each one is a pen­nant of re­mem­brance or a ban­ner for nos­tal­gia; each po­em adds to the col­laged his­to­ry that Robin­son aims to piece to­geth­er from mem­o­ry or else recre­ate with the help of cre­ative rein­ven­tion.

Sec­tion One of the col­lec­tion plunges the read­er in­to the heart of Robin­son's Brix­ton, a ri­otous sound clash, a bom­bas­tic spec­ta­cle of cul­tures con­verg­ing, a place where­in one might feel at home and si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly alien­at­ed. Prayers for An­gry Young Men kicks off the col­lec­tion, a fist-rais­ing trib­ute of suc­ces­sive in­vo­ca­tions, in which the nar­ra­tor of­fers a litany of bless­ings for the brave, bois­ter­ous youth-men he ob­serves. The repet­i­tive ca­dences of the po­em re­sound with the fever of a pas­sion­ate call to arms, of­fer­ing "prayers for the screw-faced youths who hold on to every­thing but own noth­ing, prayers for the buzz of the bar­ber's blade keep­ing their heads neat while their minds are scat­tered."Sec­tions Two and Three range wider, touch­ing on the tales of mi­grants both with­in the Caribbean and with­out. Both na­tive and in­ter­lop­er are re­vealed; both facets of the twinned coins of ar­rival and de­par­ture are flipped in Robin­son's en­er­getic in­ter­ro­ga­tions. In The Pitch Lake, a vi­o­lat­ed Ewaipanoma girl serene­ly looks on as her Eng­lish­man rapist, one of Wal­ter Raleigh's pox-spread­ing posse, is dragged down to the pitch-black depths.

The po­em On See­ing the But­ter­fly Col­lec­tion homes in on the nar­ra­tor's at­ten­tion to, and fas­ci­na­tion with, Lep­i­doptera and their habits of jour­ney­ing. The pinned wings of the mount­ed crea­tures in their dis­play cas­es do not riv­et the nar­ra­tor near­ly so much as the places the but­ter­flies have been: "patch­works of fields, salt-crust­ed waves, the grey stone face of cliffs, the shock of red hi­bis­cus, the grey-white of clouds."We hu­man trav­ellers, Robin­son seems to sug­gest, would do well to take lessons in re­silience from these sup­pos­ed­ly frag­ile crea­tures. The voice in The Monarch But­ter­fly speaks on be­half of their un­daunt­ed kind, re­mind­ing the read­er that their kind rep­re­sents "the re­turn­ing spir­its of loved ones, re­mind­ing you to keep our graves clean."The But­ter­fly Ho­tel reads as one vo­lu­mi­nous, winged pass­port: a po­et's self-pro­claimed se­ries of mark­ers, flut­ter­ing from con­ti­nent to is­land chain, from me­trop­o­lis to mar­ket stall. The po­ems sing, and lilt, and warn in equal mea­sure. They de­clare with clar­i­ty and a rich­ness of mul­ti-lensed per­spec­tive, that no jour­ney is iden­ti­cal, not for but­ter­flies, and not for hu­man so­journ­ers.