The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion by Kei Miller
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Jah’s Map Is Not Babylon’s Map

An intellectually and emotionally profound exposition about being Jamaican. Rastafarianism is a creative response to a history of enslaved dislocation, imposed religion, and the continuing degradation of colonialism. Kei Miller’s poetry treats the movement with respect, wit, and humour. He knows about the “Immappancy” of a world that neither the dominant European culture nor its science can chart. “Him work is to make thin and crushable,” he says about those who think they can analyse and measure their way to truth:

“the mapmaker’s work is to make visible
all them things that shoulda never exist in the first place
like the conquest of pirates, like borders,
like the viral spread of governments”
[so says the rastaman]

“The rastaman thinks, draw me a map of what you see
then I will draw a map of what you never see
and guess me whose map will be bigger than whose?
Guess me whose map will tell the larger truth?”

“For the rastaman – it is true – dismisses
too easily the cartographic view;
believes himself slighted
by its imperial gaze. And the ras says
it’s all a Babylon conspiracy
de bloodclawt immappancy of dis world –
maps which throughout time have gripped like girdles
to make his people smaller than they were.”

Quite apart from the joy of following Miller as he flows in and out of dialect and poetic forms is the discovery of whole new worlds of words like quashie, tegareg, and macka. I suggest this as a handy guide: https://jamaicans.com/speak-jamaican/

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