Ranters, Ravers, and Rhymers Poems by Black and Asian Poets

55 poems by 39 poets, packed into 'British', 'Caribbean', 'Indian' and 'African' sections. Dhondy, in his introduction, writes that the poems 'could not, in my opinion, have been written by a Britisher or white American' and the collection proves the point while still having an enormous range of voices. There's a blend of the well-known with the totally new. It's not always an easy read, densely packed on the page, and mixing so many strong voices and varieties of English. The well-known do less well, in the main. This isn't their best work in best surroundings. But it's an excellent and important new anthology and left me with some new favourites, particularly Adil Jussawalla's 'Approaching Santa Cruz Airport, Bomby', which matches the plane's descent into the city through language, rhythm and ideas.