'First Rain' is a spirit journey to pull together a 'necessary, fractured past', a poetic record of a struggle towards wholeness. In the first part, 'Bush Roots', Weir-Soley recovers her ancestral past in a series of narratives and dramatic monologues that give a living, breathing portrayal of a Jamaica that is gone, but whose parable-speaking elders still offer a guide to survival. Whether from actual memory, the fragments of family story, the clues from photographs or from a dreaming imagination, Weir-Soley presents a grandfather's 'dutty-tuff' vision, a grandmother's 'bush magic', the practical, gruff goodness of Uncle Miguel, the car mechanic who teaches generations of boys useful skills, who she sees as Ogun, a 'lesser god/for a greater good', and many others. These are people she makes you regret not having known, but grateful that she shares them. It is a world built up in careful detail, a complex, nuanced world that contains both neighbourly solidarity, but also the dividing gradations of class, skin-colour and occupation; a world where women can be treated as beasts of burden, where 'outside' children suffer emotional abuse, but where men like her uncle are shown behaving with great tenderness towards children. Against the solidity of this world, part two, 'Exiled Musings', contrasts the nightmarish, temporariness of Caribbean migrant life in the USA, a people 'orphaned from our homes'. Here, Weir-Soley brings the realities of the travails of young black men with the law, black on black violence, crack and HIV/Aids into sharp and often angry focus. But in the final parts, 'Heartwars' and 'Incantations', we see the struggles to rebuild family and respect, and the capacity for joy and sensuality, the resilience and spirituality of a people who never lose their sense of God's grace.

A wide-ranging anthology of poetry, short fiction, and critical essays designed to generate thought about what is still a conflicted area of Caribbean literature and culture, this revealing, in-depth examination explores the many facets of the erotic in contemporary Caribbean literature--from desire; the psychology of abusive relationships; the role of fantasy; and issues of infidelity, lust, rape, self-respect, self-love, and child-birth. This anthology also discusses the Caribbean frameworks of sexuality as a cultural construct, from the role of "machismo," homophobia, and Protestant-fundamentalist sexual ideologies as specific forms of denial and hostility to the open expression of sexual desire. The essays then extend the book's scope beyond literature and consider the impact of the erotic upon other aspects of Caribbean life, ranging from song lyrics to the general issues of female empowerment in Caribbean societies. Featuring the work of well-known writers such as Nalo Hopkins, Colin Channer, Kwame Dawes and the work of many fresh new talents such as Obediah Michael Smith, Christian Campbell, and Tiphanie Yanique, this anthology aims to create a new framework in which the full spectrum of the erotic in Caribbean literature and life can be freely explored.