Howard A Fergus

First of August Come Again Poems of Celebration Howard A Fergus

Beginning with half a dozen poems on the theme of slave emancipation in Montserrat, this collection highlights the significance of that event in our history, and memorialises some of the main players. Meanwhile we celebrate in poetry and story, persons like William Bramble, Robert Griffith, Ellen Peters and company who protested and fought against post-emancipation landlordism which was virtual slavery in a new guise. As labour leaders, they used trade unionism and socialist politics to accomplish their goals. We also celebrate a couple of prominent Montserratian artistes in Keithroy Morson (De Bear) and Edgar White, an intriguing and first class creative writer. Then there are the 'occasional' poems led by "Hurricane Dorian", itself iconic in a negative sense, indeed notorious; and there is a Nine/Eleven poem which inevitably memorialises a macabre event which resonated across the world. The other September poems which it inspired including " Nine/Thirteen" (Friday) have their sinister and hopefully intriguing appeal. Finally there is "The Clock" a wedding gift of forty-nine years ago, an "undying memento" which celebrates my spouse. Evidently, the theme of celebrations cum-remembrance runs throughout this anthology; and remembrance captures something of the baleful history of wasting hurricanes and therewith our existential concerns in the era of global warming. First of August Come Again is a work of our mature years fresh, we believe, with deep, contemporary human interest that transcends island