With characteristic lack of preamble, Louise Bennett leaps from the pages of this excellent selection of her poems. Less baleful but every bit as compelling as the Ancient Mariner, she catches the reader’s attention at once and carries him along on the tide of her vitality. Whether she arrests us with a hand on the shoulder (“But Goverment fas, eeh mah? Lawd!”) or hails us excitedly as she approaches (“Fling weh de wash pan, drop de clothes!’’), draws herself up pompously (“Young ladies and young gentlemans”) or draws us with self-pity (“Me a po Muffeena, no, missis”), announces what sounds like promising news (“Miss Jane jus hear from Merica”) or pretends she has not got time for us (“Me deh pon hase, me cyaan tap now”), Bennett always starts at the heart of her story. This contributes considerably to the admirable economy of her poems, which often manage to be both expressive and succinct. This is the skill of the polished oral narrator, but Bennett’s poems derive their power from other sources as well.