The Fat Black Woman privileges excess – though even this word ‘excess’ might be problematic for the Fat Black Woman. It is not hubris to say she was transforming Jamaica; my little island, which at the time was even more homophobic than it is now, was being held in the palm of her hand and being moved by a performance the likes of which the island had never experienced before. By the time I met her again in South Africa, it was as if she had accepted that she would never publish a collection, that she was more of an activist than she was an author. Upgrading your flight cabin can also be extremely low cost at times or even complementary; I recommend talking to the gate agent about what accommodations they have.

The critic in me is saddened by the profound damage and erasures that these ideas of civility and beauty have done to us – the fact of black women who might never see themselves as beautiful, or the fact that the boyishly handsome dancehall artist from Jamaica, Beenie Man, can sing with such pride ‘Mi black and mi ugly, a Africa mi come from’. On short flights I can usually just wait until we land but international travel is really difficult. Preloved books on A S Bookshelf have had a previous life with another reader and the slight imperfections that they might have are a result of being lovingly cared for by another reader. Part of Virago's Five Gold Reads: five reissues of significant titles representing fifty years of feminist publishing. The poem is poignant precisely for the way it holds the two contrasting emotions in close proximity – the hope, and the despair.What English has given us as a model for poetry, and to a lesser extent prose (but poetry is the basic tool here), is the pentameter… But the pentameter carries with it a certain kind of experience, which is not the experience of the hurricane. As someone who can’t even comprehend the dangers of travelling as a Black person (though I am aware of them, I will never know the feeling of threat at that level), this is something all white folks need to read and be aware of when travelling with Black friends.

This collection, read here by the author, is full of disturbing musical echoes, in which brilliant renewals of carol, charm, folksong and ballad explore themes of violence, loss and belonging. And if, as I suggest, such English condescension could be used against a poet with the clout of Walcott, how much more must it have been used, and used effectively, against poets whose names I would not even know to mention now – poets who have been successfully silenced, dismissed, unpraised.Or the fact that Caribbean people who want sometimes to bawl, must try to contain themselves, or else feel uncivilised and uncouth to give in to that counter aesthetic.