A Map of the Island

John Walker is a professor of Spanish at Queen’s University.

The Edmonton-based poet Nigel Darbasie was born in Trinidad, but came to
Canada in 1969. Consisting of some 50 poems, A Map of the Island is a
personal account of growing up in Trinidad. The island may be just a
spot on the map near Venezuela, but to the poet, “it was more like a
vast country / where worlds lay enfolded within worlds.” The poems are
a record of his various homes (with their mysterious neighbors), his
school and college experiences, and his early influences (guitars and
piano lessons, movies and radio, carnivals and cricket games). Most of
his activities took place on the street—in the market and on the
dockside frequented by American construction workers and sailors. The
West Indian rhythms reverberate throughout these deeply lyrical verses.