Write about what you know, they say. There’s poverty and poetry and dreaming vast. There’s this crazy world of plenty where resources are constantly getting squandered and misspent. That’s where this poem started …

Dear Spain. You’re trying to sell an old Mistral submarine for scrap. I’m trying to create the first underwater library. I dream of sailing from island to island in the Caribbean, bringing books to those who don’t have them. I don’t have €136,000, and you don’t have a buyer. Perhaps we can make a deal?

…

“Mother I never knew/ Each time I see

the Sea/ Each time,” wrote Issa. I get it.

Tide be runnin’ the great world over. Sea

and me we go back far. Call me poet

of sharks and tides and reading. Let me feed

you books. Let us all dream of libraries.

This could work. This could happen. But I need

help. From Saint Lucia to Buenos Aires,

all those lives hungry for literacy. Books

and a floating library on the quay.

Books to feed us all; this hurricane-size

dreaming. This is what our mother’s pride looks

like. With you. With us. Come, we’ll chart the way

together. Come, we’re all going to rise.