Console

May 22, 2023
In this exuberant volume, Channer (Providential) blends haunting lyricism, photography, and Jamaican patois into a potent combination that captures the geography of memory from the Caribbean to Senegal to New England. Dub—the electronic music that remixes existing tracks by layering effects to create new sounds—is a fitting inspiration for poems that find echoes in the ruins of the past as they reverberate in the present. Sensory details startle with their physicality and immediacy: “smells douse: old damp,/ goat fur, guano, bats. The roof holes// mate the algae puddles; loss amalgamated/ has clung.” Contrasting life in Jamaica with New England, Channer writes: “To be black where/ I live now is to bivouac. White is wilderness in all seasons.” A section titled “Hurricane Suite” alternates between poems and archival photographs of flooding in Providence, R.I., posing provocative questions about how and what is remembered: “the willed-to-be-forgotten pitch of English/ waffled by our great-grands, tongues flecked with/ known shame-bearing words, argots of bias,/ blessings, caste worship—chant, spell, hex.” These intricate poems render the depths of memory in refreshingly original language.

June 1, 2023
In his second poetry collection, following Providential (2015), Channer finds inspiration in dub music, an electronic genre derived from reggae and based on taking disparate parts of existing songs and creating something new. The result of this inspiration is a book, divided into four sections, that explores time and place, memory and the present, and journeys to and away from home. Though geographically and tonally expansive, these poems retain a distinct and consistent voice that effectively presents indelible scenes. Consider the rhythm and vibrancy of the opening for "Bubble," ""Love from another time beneath me / in that new white cube house / mouth-water from my brother's lip a dollop on my arm; / and the bed irks when he fidgets." These scenes build upon one another through different forms within the collection, often taking the reader to unexpected places. The two middle sections are responses to photographs, some of which are included in the book, and further enrich the experience. Channer imbues this collection with beautifully described, striking moments that together form a satisfying whole.

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August 1, 2023

The lyricism of poet/novelist Channer's second poetry collection (after Providential) demands constant attention from its audience and rewards that attention. Music (particularly dub, with its emphasis on remix and pastiche) both grounds and catalyzes the collection, acting as metaphor, form, and subject. Poems muse on place, exile, and belonging, weaving between the Jamaica of Channer's youth, his current New England home, and various memory-driven wanderings, from Senegal to Amy Clampitt's cabin in the Berkshires. Sound and water, as well as creatures of the water, often launch remembrance or connections, and the poems both question exodus and display a liberating embrace of the nomadic self and home ("For now and months to come I'm Berkshire, too"). Temporal mash-ups are scattered through the collection ("I'm half dissolved to Kingston,/ maybe '72"), lending to its often dreamlike associative atmosphere ("what is then and then this now?"). The long second section, "Hurricane Suite," splices photos from historic flooding in Providence, RI, with poems that mix music, Biblical story, memory, and myth ("There's reggae,/ Jonah, whale. It's with them/ I myth travel"), ultimately questioning what might be learned from devastation. VERDICT A dreamy, vivid, linguistically alive collection that will reward the careful reader.--Amy Dickinson

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