Picasso, I Want My Face Back

Art, landscape and memory are interwoven strands in the fabric of Grace Nichols' Picasso, I Want My Face Back. The collection opens with a long poem in the voice of Dora Maar, who, as Picasso's muse and mistress, was the inspiration for his iconic painting, "The Weeping Woman". The poems are almost interlocking reflections that echo the cubistic manner of the painting and allow us to enter the shifting surfaces of Dora Maar's mind and her journey of self reclamation.

Not only rich music, an easy lyricism, but also grit, and earthy honesty, a willingness to be vulnerable and clean., Grace Nichols has wit, acidity, tenderness, any number of gifts at her disposal., From her first collection in 1983, I Is a Long Memoried Woman, she has been a strong presence in the linguistic interweave between the Caribbean and the UK. Her poetry and prose move easily between the poised world of Western culture, Old World history and myth, and the gritty rhythms of the Caribbean everyday… There is wit, irony and passion…real poise.

Born in Guyana, Grace Nichols has lived in Britain since 1977. Her first collection, I is a Long Memoried Woman (1983) won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. Her later poetry collections – published by Virago – include The Fat Black Woman’s Poems (1984), Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Woman (1989), Sunris (1996), winner of the Guyana Prize, and Startling the Flying Fish (2006), poems which tell the story of the Caribbean, along with several poetry books for younger readers, including Come on into My Tropical Garden (1988), Give Yourself a Hug (1994), Everybody Got a Gift (2005) and Cosmic Disco (2013). She has published four books with Bloodaxe, Picasso, I Want My Face Back (2009), I Have Crossed an Ocean: Selected Poems (2010), The Insomnia Poems (2017), and Passport to Here and There (2020), a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. She lives in Sussex with the poet John Agard and their family.