The Stone-Breakers and Other Poems

Description

Released on 24^th September 2026, The Stone-Breakers and Other Poems (hereafter The Stone-Breakers) is Dr. McClymont’s 9^th book. Like her previous collection of poetry – Walk-Foot Woman and Other Poems – the book explores a wide range of themes, including transatlantic slavery, colonialism, neocolonialism, racism, religion, travelling, tourism, identity, belonging, otherness, dislocation, gender, patriarchy and boundaries. While several of the poems in the collection celebrate the Jamaican language (known as patois), others highlight the importance of memory.

Description

The Stone-Breakers (2026) is Dr. McClymont’s second collection of poetry that seeks to represent marginalized voices. A timely addition to “the call for reparations from Britain for chattel slavery”, the book offers a view of the past that attempts to recreate the violence endured by enslaved Africans in poems such as “Black Ivory: Call and Response” and “The Stone-Breakers”. Seeking to retrieve the voices of African women who have been relegated to footnotes in other people’s stories, Dr. McClymont has used the resources handed down (proverbs, folk/sacred songs and storytelling) to acknowledge her ancestors by telling their stories. More importantly, by writing back to the makers of “history from above” (mainly male historians), and mainstream publishing that continues to exclude most Black writers, the book makes it clear that “representation matters”.