IKONS—Book Review by Modeste Downes

John Robert Lee is a significant Saint Lucian artist. Besides his many roles in art and culture, it is poetry that has become his most faithful companion. Over several decades into his poetic odyssey, he has produced some fine collections in which his progressive maturity and dexterity in the art form are reflected with each new work.

IKONS: New & Selected Poems is a tapestry that celebrates the contributions of weighty practitioners, deceased stalwarts whose mark remain, as well as an acknowledgement of several who continue to impress.

Although he employs a vocabulary that embraces both breadth and depth, and his metaphors are as varied as they are potent, the poems are not so complicated as to render them cumbersome or uninterpretable (and some of them are accompanied by art and photography from a number of Saint Lucian artists). His lyrics reflect the candour of the sentiments the poet wishes to convey, as in these lines from “White Cedar” for Derek Walcott:

we want your grey-eyed fierceness here
not in the torch-lit catacombs of your head
not in tiresome fictions of some mythical you
but impossibly, like Atlantic breakers
glimpsed through bamboo off violated Praslin…”

Or in “Masquerade”:

Much has gone…
like the implacable power of priests
their separating funeral bells
their reserved pews…
old parties of class
have transmogrified to class-coded camps
of political spite and petty vendettas
more ole-mas’, less costume…
characters don’t know
their own alienation…

And in this stanza of unambiguous atrocities of white-on-black in bigoted America (from “Watchman”):

Ask them about liberal democracy that plants burning crosses
on their lawns, knees in their necks, metal in their fleeing backs,
that makes them invisible ciphers fenced in minority ghettos, …

In addition to this chronicler’s (to some) profound sense of history, Lee’s poetry portrays a writer with a keen interest in people and the human condition, a passion for native landscape, and an undying reverence for God. In his brief ode to “Pigeon Island,” he muses: “Do angels congregate here, in this place?” And after pointing to its varied uses by others, he indicates what this ‘sanctuary’ means for him:

me, I love the ascending leaf-strewn way to the curving spine
that leads to musing about angels,…
then coming down, to sit gazing at promiscuous surf collapsing forever
all over the unyielding, wet incumbent stones.

As for his unassuming faith in God and dedication to the Christian mission of that God, he says:

He knows His own, the oppressed of the earth
and He will deliver in His appointed time.

It would have helped that a couple of the dedications made at least a passing reference to the thing that best holds the memory of the ‘eulogized’ icon. For instance, a mention of Charles Cadet’s (“From Office Hours”) Poinsettia Blossoms, his signature musical composition that awakens him every Yuletide season, or his operatic, melodious voice. Similarly, “Vigil” (for George Fish Alphonse) rages against Empire and Colonialism, without a signal of what marks the artist for inclusion. Unlike “White Cedar,” which virtually embodies Derek Walcott in the lines, or Jallim’s “Archetypes: on sticks of oars.”

And I think also of a missed inclusion of world-famous Lwellyn Xavier, among the honorees in this tribute.

Be that as it may, these minor personal preferences do not in any way reduce the value or strength of these poems.

Then there’s the “After Poems,” some of which bring out more—and more explicitly—the writer’s theological preoccupations:

What explains our desires for peace, fellowship
and love? Why does man worship even idols of stone?…
we make psalms of our living before your throne…  
I will sing to the Lord
yesterday, today and tomorrow…

In earlier poems in the book (pp. 43-44), the writer has already addressed his mind to things eschatological:

We return from, we return to each other and God
& after, where? Who there? What to see?
After that thick high door open for the last parole?
However you pass through. Zion for the righteous sufferer…
saints in gardens of herbs by the river of life…

And at page 35, the poet issues a reminder:

and yes, death go die one day
when Resurrection morning come
when the Lord Christ come down…

Then there’ll be the Judgment and Heaven or hell will be man’s destiny.

Some classify him as a Christian/religious poet. I don’t. I rather see John Robert Lee as one whose Christian sojourn—all his coming and going, being and loving, teaching and preaching, searching and re-inventing—is not separate and distinct from his everyday routine, man-in-the-world existence, whose articles of faith flow naturally into his poetry. No different than the way he flirts with the “Lakonmet” or “Kwadrille,” that fits snugly into his lyric. As such, one of John Robert Lee’s enduring legacies will be the manner in which he has skilfully hybridized a poetic idiom that does not demand a bridge to link these two elements.

The poet dedicated IKONS to Msgr. Patrick Anthony, founder of the Folk Research Centre (FRC), and Kenny D. Anthony, former prime minister of St. Lucia, both of whom he regards as lifelong companions of faith and art.

Lee is one of St. Lucia’s most prolific writers. He followed IKONS with Belmont Portfolio, which was published by Peepal Tree Press, and his newest collection, After poems, psalms, is to be published by Peepal Tree in August 2025.

Besides being one of St. Lucia’s top poets, as well as a journalist and a librarian, Robert Lee has and continues to be a great facilitator of St. Lucian art and culture. In keeping with this role, he has announced that all sale proceeds from the book, which is being sold at FRC, will be used to support less fortunate artists.

About Modeste

Ranked in the top ten of St. Lucia’s all-time best poets, Modeste Downes, has published three critically acclaimed collections of poetry—Phases (2005), Theatre of the Mind (2012), and A Lesson on Wings (2019). He was the winner of the 2004 George Odlum Award for Creative Artists; Phases, was the winner of the 2005 M&C Main Prize for literature; and Theatre of the Mind was the winner of the 2012 CDF Arts Award for poetry. Modeste Downes is also a distinguished Jako Journalist. His latest book, Jungle Democracy on Trial: The Politics of Covid, presents a commentary on the current state of politics in St. Lucia. The poet was born and raised in the Vieux Fort area and is among a small cohort of writers who are giving rise to a distinguished body of Vieux Fort literature that is among the best of what the island has to offer.

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