Book review: In Nearby Bushes, by Kei Miller

Like an eagle-eyed newspaper sub-editor, Jamaican poet Kei Miller is concerned with nuance, with detail and with linguistic grey areas, and in his latest collection the former Forward Prize winner is constantly probing the subtle ambiguities of words. His new book begins with two quotes. One is from Jamaican blogger Paul Tomlinson, who suggests that if criminals in newspaper reports forever seem to be “escaping in nearby bushes” then the police should “go inna the bush and catch them.” The other is from professor Anthony Harriott, director of the Institute of Criminal Justice and Security at Uwi Manor, Jamaica, who makes a distinction between “in the nearby bushes” and “the nearby bushes.” The former expression, Harriott says, “equals concealment, danger” whereas the latter equals “a place of opportunity to do what one wishes to be hidden from others.” Such wafer-thin distinctions are dotted throughout this collection, sometimes to facilitate a change in direction, sometimes to make a point, sometimes both.