This is Roger Robinson reading a few poems from his book “A portable paradise”, poems which were supposed to be about the “utopian ideal of paradise”, but ended being also about the Grenfell Tower, Windrush, and his new-born son. I am discovering poets reading their poems. It has so much more sense and depth than when I read them from a book. These readings convey all the history of the poems, the poet’s memories, and the emotions of the story. You can hear what they mean. I shed tears every time. Powerful.
Another consultant tells the nurses to stop feeding a baby, who will soon die,
and she commands her loyal nurses to feed him. “No baby must dead
wid a hungry belly.” And she’d sit in the dark, rocking that well-fed baby,
held to her bosom, slowly humming the melody of “Happy” by Pharrell.
And I think, if by some chance, I’m not here and my son’s life should flicker,
then Grace, she should be the one.