Longlisted for the 2016 OCM Bocas Prize for Poetry

“The Caribbean policeman is a character both foreign and familiar at the center of this intimate debut poetry collection. Combining Jamaican patois and American English, it tells the story of violence, loss, and recovery in the wake of colonialism.”
—O, the Oprah Magazine, One of 19 Books to Pick Up This October

“Extremely worthwhile . . . Channer brings an Olive Senior like narrativity to these sharp character sketches, and by deploying his keen novelist’s eye he can trace the actions and effects of power on these men and their families in interesting and compelling language.”
—Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal

One of LargeUp’s Ten Great Books by Caribbean Authors in 2015

“Jamaican-born Channer draws on the rich cultural heritage of the Caribbean and his own unique experience for this energetic, linguistically inventive first collection of poetry. . . . Channer’s lyrics pop and reel in sheer musicality. . . . A dextrous, ambitious collection that delivers enough acoustic acrobatics to keep readers transfixed ’till the starlings sing out.'”
—Booklist

“Channer . . . skillfully examines the brutality that permeates Jamaica’s history in this moving debut poetry collection. . . . Channer’s poems rise to present the reader with a panoramic view of a place ‘built on old foundations of violence,’ of ‘geographies where genocide and massacre/ hang like smoke from coal fires.’”
—Publishers Weekly

“[Channer’s] technique and foresight bring the underlying story of the collection, and the history he expounds, into full daylight and the collection succeeds in revealing a life and history as an essay might, but with the beauty of lyric added to narrative in an exercise that is cohesive in its ability to maintain its trajectory. It is a notable accomplishment.”
—New York Journal of Books

“Fear stalks everyone, police and pursued, and Channer’s poems arrest us to that truth in syncopated, shocking fevers.”
— Caribbean Beat

“Jamaica’s Colin Channer has been mixing patois in his romantic tales since his 1998 debut novel, Waiting In Vain. In 2015, he blessed us with Providential (Akashic), a poetry collection that touches on the full range of Jamaican languages and dreams.”
—LargeUp

“Distinguished by a strong oral sense, it mixes Jamaican patois and American English, Rasta and reggae, also mixing voices in short and long forms as it progresses from the history and nature of the Jamaican police force to moving poems about “mounds of buried hurt” in Caribbean society, where people are caught in an ordained sociology of poverty, humiliation, and other indignities. Providential begins with Channer’s own father and how his days on the force affected his family and the very idea of fatherhood. It includes a retrospective vision (in New England) by the poet of his Jamaican childhood as well as a contemporary exploration of the challenges of trying to be a better father for his own teenage son . . . An interesting volume that escapes the trap of colonial exoticism.”
—World Literature Today

“[Channer’s] strongest offering yet. . . . Providential perfectly clothes the written word with matching tone and atmosphere. Welcome to the hallowed halls of Fine Poetry!”
—Kaieteur News (Guyana)

“Channer has written a fine set of poems that, like classical myth, start with the search for the lost father and end with the found son, the poet in the process replacing the lost father with a found self.”
—Russell Banks, author of The Sweet Hereafter

“The voices and irrepressible human dance of the clan pulsing at this book’s center leave me breathless and I realize how close the voices are to my own, how much I crave this dance.”
—Patricia Smith, author of Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah

“This is such a brilliant ‘toast,’ this swift and pained and skimming history of Jamaica sweetly written by a poet with a cop dad. Providential does justice to the diasporic reality of places being ‘there but not there,’ including of course America, the poet’s current home. Lush lists and light-footedness and keen word choices all restore a limb to our comprehension of colonial trauma and make this one of the most lucid and telling poetry books of this exact time.”
—Eileen Myles, author of Snowflake

“Channer writes with a moving vulnerability and much lyric grace, revealing new facets to familiar themes—home, family, history, and the evolving journey of self. A universal, timeless meditation.”
—Chris Abani, author of The Secret History of Las Vegas

“This one is an audacious and brilliant take on noir, written with pitch-perfect rhythm and a keen eye for supple, limber turns.”
—Lorna Goodison, author of From Harvey River