Full Description
Courtney Conrad's powerful work interrogates the tensions within Caribbean migration, gender-based violence and national politics. Migrating from Kingston as a teenager, she is unflinching in her attempts to capture the vibrancy and violence of her experiences in both the UK and Jamaica.
Her poetry draws together subversive diasporic imagery, national political commentary and shatteringly personal narrative in its exacting response to the political corruption and violence she witnessed as a young girl in Jamaica in the wake of its colonial subjugation under the British Empire. The themes of her work stretch across state- and gender-based violence, religion, raw bodily introspection and lush cultural memorabilia that reimagines the warmth and blood of both her homes.
I Am Evidence was the winner of the 2022 Mslexia Women's Poetry Pamphlet Competition judged by Imtiaz Dharker, and includes some work which won her an Eric Gregory Award in 2022. It is her debut pamphlet.
Contents
9 Mommy Carry Mi Guh Coronation Market
10 Classifieds: Brute Neighbour
11 Inna Di Trenches
12 Tief like Puss
13 When Yuh Point Finga, Three Point Back
14 Kibba Yuh Mouth
15 If Wi Neva Block Di Road, Wi Wouldn't Find Her
16 Community Breeds Miracle
17 Snapper
18 Shhh... Gunshot Can Pick Padlock
20 Water Polo Sessions Before Coke
21 Extradition of Drug Lord Dudus Coke: Barbican Girl Dash Weh Tivoli Boy
23 Morning after Coke
24 Puss and Dog Nuh Have Di Same Luck
25 the path of no papers
26 Motherland Nuh Wah Wi Again
27 Babylon Wah Tun Us Inna Rasta Mouse
29 Acknowledgements
32 Biographical note
