The Wayfarer: Collected Poems

In this powerful debut collection, Royston Emmanuel charts a geography of becoming that spans from the hills of St. Lucia to the underground tunnels of London, from childhood innocence to the complex negotiations of adult consciousness. Thirty years in the making, The Wayfarer moves through four distinct but interwoven movements-Innocence, Grieving, Witnessing, and Becoming-each demanding its own formal approach and emotional register.Emmanuel's voice shifts fluidly between standard English and vernacular, honouring the truth that different memories require different tongues. Whether capturing a child's bewilderment at endless breadfruit meals, the ritualistic arrival of death in small communities, or the contemporary figure of "the uber negro" scrolling through social media, these poems refuse to translate experience into a single register for anyone's comfort.The Wayfarer is what you become when you can't go back but won't let go-carrying your origins into territories that don't yet have names for what you bring. Emmanuel emerges as an essential voice in Caribbean literature, transforming the raw material of memory into something that serves not just as personal testimony, but as a bridge toward broader understanding of what it means to live consciously in time.

• | Author: Royston Emmanuel
• | Publisher: Independently Published
• | Publication Date: Jul 14, 2025
• | Number of Pages: 98 pages
• | Binding: Paperback or Softback
• | ISBN-13: 9798291332986