{"id":55469,"date":"2017-12-26T03:11:43","date_gmt":"2017-12-26T03:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=55469"},"modified":"2017-12-26T03:14:56","modified_gmt":"2017-12-26T03:14:56","slug":"review-to-sweeten-bitter-by-raymond-antrobus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=55469","title":{"rendered":"Review: To Sweeten Bitter by Raymond Antrobus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/estruch-notebook.co.uk\/2017\/11\/review-to-sweeten-bitter-by-raymond-antrobus\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em><strong>Review: <\/strong><\/em><strong>To Sweeten Bitter<\/strong><em><strong> by Raymond Antrobus<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/estruch-notebook.co.uk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Estruch Notebook: Website of Sarala Estruch, Writer and Poet<\/a><br \/>\n2017-11-02<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/saralaestruch\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Sarala Estruch<\/strong><\/a><br \/>\n<em>London, England<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/estruch-notebook.co.uk\/2017\/11\/review-to-sweeten-bitter-by-raymond-antrobus\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/estruch-notebook.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/31m99A8CQ4L._SX317_BO1204203200_.jpg\" width=\"300\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=55460\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>To Sweeten Bitter<\/em><\/a> by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.raymondantrobus.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Raymond Antrobus<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\n<strong> Published by Outspoken Press, London, 2017<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong> 49pp. \u00a38.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=55460\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>To Sweeten Bitter<\/em><\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.raymondantrobus.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Raymond Antrobus\u2019<\/a> third pamphlet, is a deeply moving and important collection. Within these twenty-one poems, Antrobus deftly interweaves personal grief and the individual struggle to reclaim a sense of identity after his father\u2019s death with postcolonial grief and the continued struggle for a sense of identity among persons of dual heritage living in a postcolonial world.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018In the Supermarket\u2019 describes the poet attempting to reclaim his deceased father by purchasing \u2018everything [he] used to see in his house\u2019. In this poem, inanimate objects are deployed to simultaneously conjure up the character of the deceased father, the character of the bereaved son, and the nature of grief itself.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><em>I would be holding<\/em><\/strong><br \/>\n<em> on too hard<\/em><br \/>\n<em> to my humming father<\/em><br \/>\n<em> who is wind and mirror<\/em><br \/>\n<em> and West Indian Hot Pepper Sauce<\/em>&#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Read the entire review <a href=\"http:\/\/estruch-notebook.co.uk\/2017\/11\/review-to-sweeten-bitter-by-raymond-antrobus\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;To Sweeten Bitter,&#8221; Raymond Antrobus\u2019 third pamphlet, is a deeply moving and important collection. Within these twenty-one poems, Antrobus deftly interweaves personal grief and the individual struggle to reclaim a sense of identity after his father\u2019s death with postcolonial grief and the continued struggle for a sense of identity among persons of dual heritage living in a postcolonial world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,5,8,10],"tags":[27886,20730,27887],"class_list":["post-55469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-book-reviews","category-media-archive","category-uk","tag-estruch-notebook","tag-raymond-antrobus","tag-sarala-estruch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55469"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55470,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55469\/revisions\/55470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}