She Who Sleeps With Bones was named a 2009 Jamaican bestseller in
Jamaica Gleaner 'Local books did it big in 09'.
In Tanya Shirley's She Who Sleeps With Bones, the hauntings of memory
and the spiritual lead us to eloquently shaped epiphanies that turn what
appear at on the surface to be simple and tidy stories into profound
meditations on the human condition.
Shirley acts as a witness to the lives of those around her, yet she is a
biased witness, one who has become so enmeshed in the lives of her
'characters' that gradually we become convinced that she has erased the
lines that would allow us to distinguish her from the people who enter
her work.
The collection is anchored by a series of spiritual poems that
beautifully enact the mysteries of inner sight and clairvoyance of a
poet who is a reluctant seer, who comes from a family of seers. Her
reluctance arises from the toll that sight brings to the poet - the
burden of feeling, and speaking the truths that haunt. And yet for all
its spiritual intelligence, these are poems of earthy sensuality and
celebratory humor that are fully rooted in the every day details of
living, loving, fearing, laughing and hoping.
Shirley's poems are beautifully crafted and they reveal her deft
handling of syntax and musicality. She is as meticulous in her choice of
words and images as she is in her honesty of emotion and risk-taking.
Ultimately, however, it is the resilience of her joy that remains with
us after each poem - for all its complications, (and there are many
explored here - deaths of dear friends and relatives, the anxieties of
being an alien in another country, the perils of unrequited love, the
importance of size in sexual play, and the premonitions of tragedy) the
world is ultimately full of wonder and joy for Tanya Shirley, a joy that
she manages to make sublimely contagious.
