Concrete DreamsConcrete Dreams tells the gripping story of Lucas Bostock, a Jamaican immigrant who arrives in 1950s London determined to succeed and to impose his vision of success on his family. A harsh, domineering man, shaped and scarred by survival, Lucas is no ones idea of a nice man. When his wife Rhoda finally leaves him, taking their only daughter, hes left to raise their three sons with a mix of toughness, pride, and unrelenting ambition. Lucas believes

Are we more like a coffee bean

Writing in response to an attempted rape and other experienced attacks

North and South America and Britain’

and together present an equally powerful and graphic picture of the poet’s homeland

becomes the target of the pair’s escalating antics

"Marvin Bell may have the most refined ear of his free verse contemporaries

CO Jellema

I am 58909

but also his compulsive desire to analyse his surroundings and self

entertaining and honest to the end of his life

As in a Dutch master ‘tablescape’

even interspersing Yiddish phrases