Mahogany Eve

An exotic and ambitious collection in which deceptively simple structures are built to carry an impressive weight of interest and reference. – Andrew Motion

The guardian spirit of this book is a mahogany sculpture called Eve, part of the permanent collection in the Graves Art Gallery in Sheffield. She's looking over her shoulder. Her gaze takes in journeys across the Atlantic, beaches in the Caribbean, a boarding school in Yorkshire, departures and arrivals, home- comings, a grandmother buried in Port of Spain, two brothers on the Orinoco, Hindu gods and goddesses, runaways, castaways, slaves, a cartographer who never leaves his room, mothers and sons, fathers and sons, and a goat pulling a bishop on a sledge…

Alan Payne's poems are rooted in the Caribbean, evoking a sense of separation and loss, and touch on the contradictions and betrayals of colonialism.

Shortlisted for the 2025 Derek Walcott Prize