An extended review of a 2025 book by Vilma Blenman
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Pickering Press, 2025. 114 pages. $18 (ebook $8)
Brown Eyes Watching is a word collage of experiences and observations from Vilma Blenman, a teacher and counsellor who immigrated to Canada from Jamaica at age 17. Blenman is a Christian who writes. Although these stories take the form of poetry, they are accessible, filled with vivid images which help the reader see other points of view.
Sometimes Blenman acts as a travel guide, leading the reader from peach-sweet mangos in a Jamaican yard to a newcomer’s view of Canada, where dandelions are “the yellow field / floating by / waving hi / flowers in full bloom, / so cheery they banished my homesick gloom” (“First Flowers,” 13).
Sometimes she stretches the reader. In the same way we understand “How shall they believe if they do not hear,” Blenman equips Christians to consider the question of “How shall we love if we do not know?”
Some of her lived experiences are coloured by pain, anger, even despair. “I kept no map of / migration routes and read no manuals on mixing melanin…It’s complicated—this life of blackness lived in whiteness” (“Becoming Black,” 36–37).
Sometimes her words glide – “rapacious young rapper ranting in your ears” (“Jamaican Mother to Son,” 47). Sometimes they are lofty – “the power of the past, the process of the present, the paths of the future for freedom for all” (“Emancipation is a Long Word,” 53–54). Sometimes dialect flows in a hard-hitting rhythm that evokes Old Testament prophetic lament – “Good God, good grief! Is there no relief from this thief that / steals our sons?” (“Good Boys Dead Boys,” 44–45).
While Brown Eyes Watching highlights differences between two cultures, it also shows commonalities, particularly in areas such as generational love and Christian faith. The “Amen Women” sat in back pews, the best place to keep watch over the young ones for whom they carried sweeties in their capacious handbags.
Some sang hymns out of tune
and some couldn’t read the words on the page
but each memorized every line.
On Sundays, they poured courage into each girl
as often as they pronounced a loud Amen
during the singing and the sermon.
Before or after church they inquired of us:
How is school going Sister Vilma?
Do your best, and God will do the rest.
(The Amen Women, 19-20)
This book is an interesting and worthy read. The images and stories of Brown Eyes Watching feed imagination and grow understanding of cultural divides. The words and rhythms delight readers who savour sounds of poetry; Blenman often performs as a spoken word artist. And this book intrigues those who ponder paradox.
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