John Robert Lee

you would love Patrick St Eloi, his sweet zouk swing, St Eloi, gone like you, beyond long nights with Alwin and friends, loud laughs, Marley, you would love Patrick’s “annou palé peace and love”, gone—

Late-life steps around multiplying tombstones with familiar names, fading inscriptions of memory, unrelenting formidable slabs that seal forever

“…the end of all our exploring, will be to arrive where we started. And know the place for the first time”. —Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot What remains to be said, written and sung? What remains to be said, written and sung? We have been to the end of history and back again.

John Robert Lee (JRL): You were born in Trinidad with its rich literary tradition. You grew up in the British Virgin Islands with not as rich a tradition. What have been the influences that led you into writing, and poetry at that? And related to that, given a certain distinctive style in your published work, who have been your literary influences?

“Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes,..” (Derek Walcott)