Collected Poems : With Gordon Rohlehr "These Collapsing Times"

"The poems in this collection move from the orality and bitter punning of Prelude that deal with the disappointments of the post colonial nation and fall-out from the Black Power revolution of 1970; his sceptical investigations of faith, particularly the family resonances of Spritiual Baptist ritual in Near Mourning Ground; and arrive at the severe and stoical poems of Hard Stares that look at himself, domesticity and political corruption. Questel, as Gordon Rohlehr's exceptional tribute and close reading of the poems shows, was an unsparing observer of his own and his region's failings. HIs world is frequently a dark one, but the poems are intense with life, visionary in language and bracingly free from sentimentality or self-pity."