there was my mother
cooking cornmeal porridge,
plantains, and callaloo for later,
my father's guitar notes,
streaming in from the garden,
to hold her singing,
his music, breathing,
lifting leaves
that would collect and stir
at his feet, my mother's
clapping hands, bells jingling
on her ankles.

(lns. 12-24 of "In the Garden of Banana and Coconut Trees")

This is the language, the imagery, of Shara McCallum in her collection of poetry, The Water Between Us. Hers is the poetry of island, family, love, and loss. Taken as a whole, the poems portray life from the perspective of a Jamaican woman, one whose experience has been funny, tragic, disturbing, and beautiful.
Throughout the collection, McCallum's language is clear and accessible. This clarity does not lie in simplicity, however, for there is a subtlety to the way she approaches her subjects. She is a storyteller, and her style is of mystery, not insurmountable mystery, but a mystery that gives the reader satisfaction when images, story, emotion, and message merge as one. For instance, her father's cancer, in "Darkling I Listen," is not addressed head on, but treated in a round-about manner as a subject too painful for words like 'cancer' to describe. The result is an emotional epiphany for the reader, one that captures the essence of the experience.
This approach is particularly effective in her treatment of the pain in her life, which extends far beyond her father's sickness. The pain she feels in her relationship with her mother permeates the whole of the book, and the reader experiences the awkward discomfort of distance between mother and daughter.
The thrust of the book, happily, is not strictly loss and sadness. There is a playfulness to much of her poetry, particularly in "Calypso," where the grand western hero Odysseus is hilariously reduced to an enraptured white man, the beach fling of a young Jamaican woman. This happiness extends as a strain throughout the book, flowing through joys of music, foods, island life, and daughterhood, offsetting the tales of family distance and loss.
As a whole, McCallum's poetry provides a complete picture of life drawn from the colorful formative experiences of an intriguing woman. Her story, the joy and sorrow, the contentment and loss, conveyed in flowing, elegant verse, is beautiful, and should not be missed.

In this wonderful collection, Shara McCallum explores the nature of an identity that has been divided from itself by geography, culture, and language. Her poems face stark psychological and physical truths with a remarkable clarity of thought and a brilliant mastery of language. All poetry should be this fresh, this brave, this GOOD.

Then I picked it up again, and gave myself an entire week to read it. After two readings, I was still caught up in Ms. McCallum's amazing poems. Now I am on my third reading of the book, and I don't see how I won't continue to read it, over and over again. Ms. McCallum has a wonderful, tight rein on her writing -- plain, yet vivid, images; strong language that speaks to the mind and the heart. She's a breath of fresh air, something anyone who enjoys poetry will appreciate. Pick it up, and you won't ever put it down.