William Russell

Roselyn X William Russell

Roselyn X, a young Black prostitute, has terminal cancer and a very small child. She is angry at fate, racism, sexism, and her loss of home and culture. Roselyn Y, masquerading as Roselyn X relays her feelings and pleas in a series of 22 cantos in a collection of poetry. Roselyn's story is not all dark, it offers light and hope. Her story should never have happened; nothing has changed for Aboriginal Australians; little has changed for women and issues of sexism - or racism; and Black Deaths in Custody still generations on; let alone drug issues over that 50 year landscape of all of the poetry in this book. Black lives around the world rate a lesser value than the deaths of White people, why? Thought provoking, humorous, enlightening, and a pleasure to read.