A Necessary Gospel
Sean O’Brien, 6 June 1996
“... It was as a poet that Fred D’ Aguiar first won recognition, with his 1985 collection Mama Dot, set in the Guyanese village where the English-born D’ Aguiar was sent to be educated. The place is dominated by Mama Dot, the archetypal grandmother, source of wisdom, comfort and discipline, a woman so important that when she falls ill nature itself goes to pieces: Bees abandon their queens to red ants and bury Their stings in every moving thing; and the sun Sticks like the hands of a clock at noon, Drying the very milk in coconuts to powder ... ”
