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Play
Mas' includes the
long poem Elegy for Val
(for Valentine Penha,1942-1972).
which was previously published as a
limited edition chapbook.
The cover featured a pen and ink
drawing by Mim Green of Death
leading the band.
Chris
Pelletiere created the jacket
illustration and
a dramatic interior illustration for
Play Mas'.
From the book jacket:
David Gershator lived in the Virgin
Islands where he consorted with the
pirates who inspired many of these
poems. Recipient of a Creative Arts
Public Service poetry award for this
work, he explores the West Indian
experience in four modes -- lyric,
narrative, mythic, and elegiac. 89 pp.
Paperback. Downtown Poets, 1981
The poet Stanley Nelson wrote:
"There is a lilt and life
to these lines, a lyrical toughness.
You are that rarity: an academic who
does not write academically!
"In the midst of this
lyrical playfulness (playful in the
good sense that jazz is playful) we
are suddenly struck by images that
startle and arrest: 'sunsets slow to
move as baskets of ripe mangoes':
'Suggestions/of starts and
mosquitoes/multiply like surgeons/over
a Unicorn operation.'
"This is good work...."
***
Gershator co-founded The Downtown
Poets Co-op, a select roster of
poets who participated in the work of
publishing (typing, layout, printing,
binding, distribution) on a spare
budget, partly funded by grants from
the National Endowment for the Arts
and the NY State Council on the Arts.
***
Here are two short poems from Play
Mas' taking a cue from the
spirit of Bermudian
Clovis Scott's line "The greenest of
islands is the tightest of cages"
(from his poem
"The Islander"):
By the shore
the pelicans ignore you
the lizards take scant notice
the sea windows look the other way
Even the goats don't care
whether you climb in or out
of the ruins
And up on the hills
so much more burns
behind the windblown flamboyants
------------------------------------------
Water embraces
the island
You'll
embrace
her like
water
Your fingers
falling
off
like water
-----------------------------------------
Two more poems from Play Mas'
on
the Poetry page.
And in a section on prose, three island
stories: quick takes on an
island murder, a thinly disguised
literary icon encountering Haiti for
the first time, and the "kodachrome
syndrome. "
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