Author Rawle Frederick is off to a Miami book fair to promote his new book of poetry today.

Mr. Frederick completed his fourth publication Seasons (The Antilles) over the summer months.

He is launching his book at the Miami Book Fair International, where he is one of 600 invited authors. This is his third time to be invited and he will be read under the Caribbean section.

The Trinidad-born author has lived on the Island for 27 years and has been writing poetry since the late 1960s after he had completed degrees in English at Concordia and McGill Universities, in Montreal, Canada.

?That was during the Vietnam War time and there was a lot of social unrest and so forth,? he said, ?So the consciousness was really there and I guess it naturally led into writing.?

His other publications are Trans Atlantic Cargo, The Vendor of Dreams and A Ballad of Orange Valley.

?What is unusual is that this year I have two publications and the last was in 1992,? said the writer.

?I don?t know what happened this year, I guess I?m getting old and closer to the grave and want to leave a legacy. It is very unusual.?

The Bermuda College lecturer of African and Caribbean literature said the inspiration for Seasons (The Antilles) came at the launching of A Ballad of Orange Valley in May.

?I read poetry at the launching of the that book and quite a number of people asked about poetry and whether I had a book,? he said.

?My first book Trans Atlantic Cargo was a book of poetry and I have written off and on for journals and so forth, but then I said, ?OK?.?

Mr. Frederick escaped from Bermuda for a few months of solitude to complete his second book of the year.

?I have too many friends here,? he said. ?Our house is always full of artists and painters, so I had to get away.

?I like what the writer Toni Morrison does, she checks into a hotel on a Friday and she stays until the Monday and nobody can find her.?

Seasons (The Antilles) has four sections: The Bermudas, Africa Poems, Passages and Seasons ? The Antilles. Some poems have been published previously.

?There is one called the Ballad of Orange Valley under the Bermuda section and that is the title of the short story book, but the poem came before the book,? he said, ?Then I just fleshed it out.?

Mr. Frederick said he has a friend who has told him that he is really a poet who writes short stories.

The book was published by The Bermuda Writers? Collective and is 64 pages long.

It is printed by Bermuda Press, and the cover and images within were photographed by Bobby Smith.