"[S]ometimes forgetting the panorama/ these poems focus like a tunnel,/ To a way of seeing time past,/ a way of seeing the dead," writes Dawes of his own writing, which is often deeply concerned with the long aftermath of the African diaspora. Raised in Jamaica, Dawes takes some of his cues, and this book's title, from reggae music. But his voice in these long and short poems and sequences selected from each of his many books, which began appearing in the mid-1990s, is crystal clear,

—Craig Morgan Teicher