Ground Level

In 2011 the Government of Trinidad & Tobago declared a state of emergency to counter the violent crime associated with the drugs trade. Ground Level confronts the roots of the madness and chaos seething under the surface of this "crude season of curfew from ourselves" when the state becomes a jail.

In this dread season, Rahim finds hope and consolation in the word and in those places where it is possible to find salvation. This is an ambitious collection that speaks in both a prophetic and a highly literary, intertextual voice, which combines the personal and the public in mutually enriching ways. Rahim knows that it is "craft keeps every story true", that "language playing dead only/ to ambush change."

Jennifer Rahim is Trinidadian. Her poetry collections include: Between the Fence and the Forest (Peepal Tree Press, 2002), Approaching Sabbaths (Peepal Tree Press, 2009) and Redemption Rain (TSAR, 2011). She has one collection of short stories, Songster and Other Stories (Peepal Tree Press, 2007)