Black Uncle

Black Uncle is a book of verse that unfolds through the voices of two people in a small Welsh village: a boy named Timmy and his mother, whom he calls Mam. Each speaks in turn, so the same years are heard from two sides.

The Second World War pulls their household apart. An American serviceman who is Black enters their lives and leaves a mark on both of them, and the story follows how that encounter shapes what comes after.

The poems deal with personal loss, narrow-minded prejudice in a close community, and a boy's sexual awakening. Poverty, war, and nonconformity weigh on the village throughout, and the scenes of everyday life there are rendered in lines meant to be spoken aloud.

The story begins at a moment fixed in wartime and carries its characters forward into a postwar society that has changed around them. John Marcus Powell is a poet who performs his own work, and the verse is written to be heard in the distinct voice of each speaker.