Review on "West Indies, U.S.A", By Stewart Brown
West Indies, USA Cruising at thirty thousand feet above the endless green the islands seem like dice tossed on a casino’s baize, some come up lucky, others not. Puerto Rico takes the pot, the Dallas of the West Indies, silver linings on the clouds as we descend are hall-marked, San Juan glitters like a maverick’s gold ring. All across the Caribbean we’d collected terminals – airports are like calling cards, cultural fingermarks; the hand-written signs at Port- au-Prince, Piarco’s sleazy tourist art, the lethargic contempt of the baggage boys at ‘Vere Bird’ in St. Johns... And now for plush San Juan. But the pilot’s bland, you’re safe in my hands drawl crackles as we land, “US regulations demand all passengers not disembarking at San Juan stay on the plane, I repeat, stay on the plane.” Subtle Uncle Sam, afraid too many desperate blacks might re-enslave this Island of the free, might jump the barbed electric fence around ‘America’s back yard’ and claim that vaunted sanctuary... ‘Give me your poor...’ Through toughened, tinted glass the contrasts tantalise; US patrol cars glide across the shimmering tarmac, containered baggage trucks unload with fierce efficiency. So soon we’re climbing, low above the pulsing city streets; galvanised shanties overseen by condominiums polished Cadillacs shimmying past Rastas with pushcarts and as we climb, San Juan’s fool’s glitter calls to mind the shattered innards of a TV set that’s fallen off the back of a lorry, all painted valves and circuits the roads like twisted wires, the bright cars, micro-chips It’s sharp and jagged and dangerous, and belonged to someone else.
By Stewart Brown
REVIEW:
The West Indies, U.S.A The poet Stewart Brown makes his impression of the West indies from miles above in an aircraft and as he cast his judgment upon the rest of the island he excludes Puerto Rico who he sees as the 'maverick' or 'jackpot' of the West Indies. In Stewart Browns mind Puerto Rico is an impression of the U.S.A , And although he admires each of the countries unique offerings and features, he judges them from the terminal, Just as well as he acknowledges the way Puerto Rico wishes to be represented among the foreigners who enter, so it takes legal measures to ensure its name remains untarnished by foreign people who stop by and In this way the author compares it to the U.S.A. In Puerto Rico Brown sees and emulation of America in all its glam and beauty.
