Roger Robinson's poems of Trinidad and London win Ondaatje prize | Books | The Guardian

Robinson's collection, A Portable Paradise, which has already won him the TS Eliot prize, moves from the Grenfell Tower fire to the Windrush generation and the legacy of slavery. In its title poem, he writes how "if I speak of Paradise, / then I'm speaking of my grandmother / who told me to carry it always on my person, concealed, so / no one else would know but me".

In particularly timely words for today, the poet, musician and political activist urges that "if your stresses are sustained and daily, / get yourself to an empty room - be it hotel, / hostel or hovel - find a lamp / and empty your paradise onto a desk: / your white sands, green hills and fresh fish."