The Possibility of Tenderness by Jason Allen-Besant Audiobook Review – Reflections on Nature and Belonging | books

AAn award-winning poet living in Roundhay Park, Leeds, Jason Allen Besant spent his early childhood living with his grandmother in Coffee Grove, a mountainous rural area of ​​Jamaica that was cut off from basic amenities such as electricity and water. He notes that Coffee Grove, through the eyes of a child, was “a small place and a huge planet at the same time.” There he developed a close relationship with the local plant life by climbing trees, picking fruit, and helping his grandmother harvest potatoes on “Grung,” the local name for their small plot of land.

Alain Besant later longed for pastures new, moving first to Paris and then to Britain to study at Oxford. His dream of going higher had become a reality, but in the UK he noticed that his interactions with nature were few and far between. He realized “the extent to which class in Britain prevents people from the privileges of land and soil, and also from the tenderness that comes with forming a kinship with the land.”

The possibility of tenderness is thus an account of Allen Besant’s relationship to the land in which he grew up and to his adopted home. Warmly read and reflective by the author, the book contains reflections on nature, history, race, and the concept of belonging. Allen Besant explains how the drive to surround himself with nature allows him to feel hopeful and “find ways to live through—if not transcend—the constraints of racism.” He points out that while anger at racial injustice can be “inspirational and empowering…this book arises from a specific motive: the right not to be angry.”

Available via Penguin Audio, 8 hours 32 minutes

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