THE MINGLED MEASURE

About the Book

The Mingled Measure by Dr. Martin DeC Haynes F.R.C.S. is an outstanding book-length collection of rhythmical and rhyming poems in the style of Coleridge, Alan Poe, Oscar Wilde and Edward Fitzgerald. Some are long and some are short. The collection starts off with the details of the author’s experiences while growing up as a young boy in the island of Barbados, and living a rather Spartan existence. Included are poems about his religious teachers, about the game of cricket, the lifestyle of a few psychotic fogies who form part of his extended family. Then the theme shifts to offbeat and peculiar medical sagas both north and south. Then there is social commentary about the Caribbean, most significantly about a down and out chap who lives in a cemetery, and another who loses his job for the unauthorized use of a public transport bus during the 1990 coup d’etat in Trinidad. As a blast for the last, the collection finishes off with the incredible sixteenth century story of a Prince in Mantua, Italy, and his marriage which remained unconsummated. The points of reference were a three stage attestation of the Prince’s ability to achieve erectio, penetratio and ejaculatio. The author first heard the story from Mr. M. Smart who picked it up while on holiday in Mantua but then he got further information from Peyrefitte’s book La Nature Du Prince.

About the Author

Dr. Martin DeC. Haynes has crafted a very off-beat collection of stories, which covers a broad range of the vagaries of human behaviour, and this makes for a very delightful read. The author’s penchant for word play, for puns and for humour always startles and leaves you yearning for more. Dr. Martin DeC. Haynes was born in Barbados. He attended St. Giles Boys School and then Harrison College. He won a Barbados Scholarship which enabled him to pursue a degree in medicine at Edinburgh University in Scotland. Then he went on to gain his F.R.C.S in surgery. He worked in Trinidad for many years, and now spends most of his time in Barbados.