Living by Troubled Waters is the third poetry collection by Roy
McFarlane - an extraordinary, uncompromising book exploring slavery,
colonialism, and the continued tragedies visited upon Black bodies
whilst these legacies remain unresolved. In his close examination of the
horror of racialised violence, McFarlane examines how the strong
currents of the past and present flow side by side. His poems ask us to
think about the Black Mediterranean of today as much as we do about the
Windrush scandal and the aftershocks of trans-Atlantic slavery, where
Black people are still imprisoned, enslaved and drowned as they flee
persecution and poverty.
Living by Troubled Waters is innovative, formally experimental and far
ranging in scope; erasure & inclusion (to make known) poems interweave
and speak to the wider body of the collection. In his use of archival
documents as a space for activism and linguistic intervention, McFarlane
writes back into history, reclaiming voices and reshaping narratives.
His poems also draw strength from themes of place and displacement,
social justice, Black motherhood, family, art - and from the power of
poetry itself as a witness to troubled times.
