Thorns -Poetry of M. Nourbese Philip

Thorns is NourbeSe Philip's first book of poetry published in 1980 by Williams Wallace Inc. Stratford. It is now out of print but photocopies may be obtained from the author. Six of the poems have been published in the anthology "Grammar of Dissent"*

"(Philip), the author of Thorns, was born and raised in the Caribbean, and the best of her poems are those given energy by dialect. ... She brings verbal skill to the interesting problem of expressing her double world, Caribbean and Canadian"

David Helwig, Toronto Star –29 Aug’82

Poems

Nostalgia '64 Poisson When Was A Child Oliver Twist* Fluttering Lives* To My Sister Sheba, Queen Of Joy Broken Spaces No More But Now I See Through A Class Darkly And So To Meet Again Is A God Six Pickney A Year In The Day Of The Eternal Child Expose the Brick Unnamed La Nêna And Eyes Were Crying Musk Mysteries Eclipse Child We Heard You Weep Sun Spots	Green Bones On Reading Doris Lessing The Compass A Woman At Her Window Mothers If The News At Nine A Child's Question For Bruce Black Fruit Jongwe* Blackman Dead* Don't You Dare Virginia Creeper Seed Corn (for Käthe Kollwits) Three Times Deny* Night of Babies Development of the Eyes at Three Months A Question of Security E. Pulcherrima* All That Remains Of Kush Returns To The Desert
Nostalgia '64 Liming by de street corner dressed to kill from stingy brimmed hat to pointy toe shoes, Limacoled wit de freshness of a breeze in a bottle checking out de girls dem cruising by “buh how yuh look sweet so” talking bout de latest caiso who’s a jackabat an’ who not, liming by de Street corner dressed to kill.	All That Remains Of Kush Returns To The Desert When I return would you remember me orphaned child face set against you tied to me through suffering secret and sombre? Return I will grown woed skinned with grief for those thousand nights shall be as one stranger shadowed in stranded struggles of what was to be to speak in different tongues of ignorance forget scattered words shattering trees of truth on shoals of silence. .... You were silence. Where were your talking drums to message my soul before they twisted it before they broke it before they sold it for twelve cowrie shells before we learnt too much too soon too late? Nyame when I return rough shod take me one of your many daughters carrying lost tribes of suffering welcome me gently I carry tiny thorns of Africa within and all that remains of Kush returns to the desert. (excerpt from All That Remains Of Kush Returns To The Desert)
This book is currently out of print but available in photocopy from the author Six of the poems have been published in the anthology Grammar of Dissent*
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