This Thing That Is Not A Thing

This Thing That Is Not a Thing says a lot with little. Economy of words in fine, colourful form, these poems by Paulette A. Ramsay prompt the reader to question human perception – ways of seeing the world and ways people view each other. Weaving the everyday with the extraordinary, heaviness of heart with humour, grief and gratitude, This Thing That Is Not a Thing centres absence – absence of voice, of persons, of trust and affection – showing how silence, in particular, shapes experience and expression.

Paulette A. Ramsay is Professor of Afro-Hispanic Literatures and Cultures, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. Her publications include Afro-Mexican Constructions of Diaspora, Gender, Identity and Nation and the co-edited Afro-Hispanic Reader and Anthology.