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Dark and Unaccustomed Words  by Vahni Capildeo, 2011, Egg Box Publishing, 120pp OF POETRY, DH Lawrence once remarked, “The essential quality of poetry is that it makes a new effort of attention, and ‘discovers’ a new world within the known world.” What of the poetry of Trinidadian poet Vahni Capildeo, whose latest book is published next month?  “This poetry is not for the faint-hearted,” is how Edward Baugh opens a review of Capildeo’s  Undraining Sea . Of her first collection,  No Traveller Returns , the critic Robert Bond, in a review which is not for the faint-hearted, says, “Capildeo’s book attempts a language without intention, to replicate the obscure expression of objectless inwardness, which is sensed to intend toward utopia.” Adding to the cauldron is David Miller who argues that Capildeo’s poetry “is utterly divorced from that unfortunately prevalent tendency to write poems where the words give way to an applauding audience at the next prestigious poetry aw...

Mercy on my small husband. When he sleeps bare five hours a night wrapped in paper like an accident, like an insect itching serifs inside an envelope. He sleeps knowing I am nowhere near. He sleeps near I know not where. My small husband is an impossible sleeper...        --from ' Mercy on My Small Husband ' by Nicholas Laughlin READ more poetry from editor Nicholas Laughlin, Jim Goar and more, as well as a review of Vahni Capildeo's Undraining Sea  at the latest issue of the online journal Blackbox Manifold here . Photo by Andre Bagoo.