Caribbean Poetry

Introduction

From its earliest beginnings in the eighteenth century, Caribbean, or West Indian, poetry has been an elusive but dynamic art. Though sometimes static, it has always been an evolving art form. According to one scholar, Lloyd W. Brown, the first 180 years of West Indian poetry were uneven at best; however, Brown was appraising only the formal aspect of Caribbean poetry, a poetic tradition that was imposed on the peoples of the West Indies first by a slavocracy and later by an imperialist regime. There has always been an oral tradition in the Caribbean, and although this tradition has been suppressed, it could never be destroyed. It has existed in children’s ring games, in calypso, and in the combined arts of carnival, Junkanoo, and other folk and religious celebrations. Then, too, the unwritten tradition of the Amerindians has enriched the art of Caribbean poetry. Ironically, after years of suppression, the folk and oral traditions, combined with other aspects of Afro-Caribbean cultural experiences, are theorized, by Edward Kamau Brathwaite, as the wellspring of “nation language.”

Eighteenth century

Slavery in the Caribbean was extremely harsh, and people of African descent had very little opportunity to develop the art of composing poetry. Therefore, the first poems to be published by an Afro-Caribbean came as a result of an experiment centered in the noble savage concept. Francis Williams of Jamaica, a free Black man, was the first to publish a poem. John, the second Duke of Montagu (and at one time Jamaica’s governor), believed that if Black individuals were given the same educational opportunities as White individuals, they would be able to compete successfully with them. Williams, under the patronage of the duke, was educated in England. On his return to Jamaica, the duke was unable to establish his protégé in Jamaican society, so Williams opened a school in Spanish Town.

In 1759, Williams wrote “An Ode to George Haldane, Governor of the Island of Jamaica” to celebrate the arrival of the governor at his new office. Written in Latin, the poem, the only extant work of Williams, attests to the poet’s abilities, but it also suggests the subservient position in which Williams found himself:

Established by a mighty hand (God the creator gave the same soul to all his creatures without exception), virtue itself, like wisdom, is devoid of color. There is no color in an honorable mind, nor in art.

Williams then bids his black muse not to hesitate but to “mount to the abode of [the new governor] the Caesar of the setting sun,” and bid him welcome.

The other acknowledged poet of the eighteenth century is James Grainger, a Scottish physician who made his home in Jamaica. His extended poem The Sugar-Cane (1766) is often described as a pastoral epic that discusses the vicissitudes of life on the island. The poem is based on Western European forms that underscore European stereotypes, as in this description of the slaves:

Annon they [slaves] form; nor inexpert

A thousand tuneful intricacies weave,

Shaking their sable limbs; and oft a kiss

steal from their partners; who, with neck reclin’d

and semblant scorn resent the ravish’d bliss.

Grainger depicts a Romantic pastoral but also indicates that, should the slaves drink alcohol or hear the drum they will immediately revert to their savage ways, and “bacchanalian frenzy” will ensue. Despite the idealistic picture presented in The Sugar-Cane, the poem has come to typify the long-lived tradition of the Caribbean pastoral.

Nineteenth century

Williams and Grainger represent the poetry of the eighteenth century; the poets who typify the tradition during the nineteenth century are the Hart sisters of Antigua and Egbert Martin of Guyana. Elizabeth Hart Thwaites and Anne Hart Gilbert were two women of African descent who have not received much exposure. Their parents, Anne Clerkley Hart and Barry Conyers Hart, were free African Caribbeans. The father, a plantation owner, was also a poet who published his poems in the local newspaper. Although slavery prevailed in Antigua, both sisters married White men and devoted their lives to educating other African Caribbeans. The sisters were known for writing religious poems and hymns. Anne Hart Gilbert affirms that, although race prejudice was pervasive, her light complexion exempted her and her family from racial prejudices. In “On the Death of the Rev. Mr. Cook,” Elizabeth Hart Thwaites praises the missionary for his work among all races:

With rapture [he] heard the diff’rent tribes converse,

In Canaan’s tongue redeeming love rehearse,

And Afric’s sable sons in stammering accents tell

Of Jesu’s love, immense, unspeakable.

Like the Hart sisters, Egbert Martin had his roots in the Caribbean Basin and was considered the most prominent poet of his day. The son of a Guyanese tailor, Martin wrote poetry that followed the traditional modes of European models. He did, at times, paint realistic word pictures of Guyanese landscapes, and in some of his better poems, he makes his readers aware of the poverty of his people. Perhaps he is not as patriotic as his “National Anthem” suggests, but in it, he calls for Britain to close its “Far-reaching wings” over all its “Colonial throng.” Written for Queen Victoria’s Jubilee in 1887, the poem won an award for his patriotic efforts.

Twentieth century

Caribbean poetry came into its own during the twentieth century. The nineteenth-century poets were cautious. They protested against the oppressive rule of the colonials, but they saw themselves as British. The poets of the early part of the twentieth century were militant. They were nationalistic. The poets who best represent this period are Jamaica’s Claude McKay, Jamaica’s Louise Bennett, Guyana’s Arthur J. Seymour, St. Lucia’s Derek Walcott, and Barbados’s Edward Kamau Brathwaite.

Claude McKay

One of the strongest voices to come out of the Caribbean during the early twentieth century is that of Claude McKay, born in 1889 in Sunny Ville, Jamaica. Before leaving his home, he published two volumes of dialect poetry Constab Ballads (1912) and Songs of Jamaica (1912). Shortly after publishing these volumes, McKay migrated to the United States, where he became the voice of oppressed Black individuals not only in the Caribbean but also throughout the world. He insisted that he was “never going to carry the torch for British colonialism or American imperialism.” Using the sonnet as his major mode of expression, McKay describes America as a vicious tiger that “sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth/ stealing my breath of life.…” The poet warns America that he “sees her might and granite wonders.…Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.” The poet insists that if America kills him, “she” will be killing herself because it is he who makes America strong. In “If We Must Die,” McKay’s persona encourages the oppressed not to die “like hogs/ Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,” but to die nobly facing the enemy: “Pressed to the wall, dying but fighting back!” Although McKay was probably not thinking of the British as oppressed (the British for Mckay were always the colonizers, the oppressors), during World War II, when the Germans were blitzing London, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill quoted McKay’s poem in the House of Commons to rally the nation, and British soldiers carried copies of the poem in their pockets.

Although McKay never returned to Jamaica to live, he did write about the beauty of the island. In “Flame Heart,” he admits that he has forgotten much about Jamaica, but what he has never forgotten is “the poinsettia’s red, blood red in warm December.” His romantic nostalgia is also evidenced in “The Tropics in New York”: In passing a store that displayed tropical fruits in a window the persona admits: “And, hungry for the old, familiar ways,/ I turned aside and bowed my head and wept.” McKay, then, represents the new thrust in Caribbean poetry that came to the fore in the early part of the twentieth century. He is sophisticated enough to use the traditional British literary tradition, but instead of writing romantic pastorals he instructs the oppressed to fight and he warns the oppressors of disastrous times should they continue their oppression.

Louise Bennett

Jamaica-born Louise Bennett (1919-2006) is an important poet in the development of Caribbean poetry because she had the courage not to develop her talents in the accepted English literary tradition. Bennett admits that she was not taken seriously as a poet. She started out writing in the traditional Caribbean pastoral tradition, but she was not doing what she wanted to do, so she followed the folk/oral tradition. A nationalist and a womanist, Bennett makes her philosophical statements through humor. In “Colonization in Reverse,” the poet informs Miss Mattie, a persona in much of her poetry, that England is in for a surprise because Jamaicans now have the whip hand. They “Jussa pack dem bag and baggage;/ An tun history upside dung.” The Jamaicans are giving Britain a dose of its own medicine by moving to Britain. The poet insists that the British folk are known for being calm when faced with adversity, yet she muses: “But ah wonder how dem gwine stan/ Colonization in reverse.” In “Jamaican Oman,” Bennett explains that Island women have always been liberated and have always supported their men. Long before other women of the world sought to be liberated “Jamaican women wassa work/ Her liberation plan!” Bennett was not always held in high esteem as a poet, especially prior to the 1960s. However, with independence, poets became more concerned with finding their own voices rather than imitating British models. Bennett became the spirit of the age.

Arthur J. Seymour

Arthur J. Seymour, from Guyana (1914-1989), was pivotal to the development of poetry in the Caribbean as both a writer and a publisher. As a poet, his longevity allows us to see the transition that was occurring in the Caribbean. His poetry of the 1930s has very little if any protest and is tempered by a “colonial quiescence.” Later, however, Seymour combines his Guyanese nationalism with an embracing of the entire Caribbean. In “For Christopher Columbus,” the reader, like Columbus, sees weaving palm trees in the tropical breezes “And watches the islands in a great bow swing/ From Florida down to the South American coast.” While he seems to fall back on the earlier English model of the Caribbean pastoral, Seymour does not forget to remind his audience of the degradation of slavery and of the suffering that African Caribbeans have endured.

Derek Walcott and Edward Kamau Brathwaite

Derek Walcott (1930-2017) of St. Lucia and Edward Kamau Brathwaite (1930-2020) of Barbados are the two writers who bridged the gap between poets of the colonial period and the New World poets. These artists have witnessed the harshness of colonialism. They have known what it means to be isolated as artists and as individuals, for they came into adulthood and began their writing when the Caribbean nations were still Crown colonies. As a poet and a dramatist, Walcott has used his talents to accentuate Caribbean speech patterns and cultural traditions in works such as Omeros (1990) and The Odyssey: A Stage Version (pr. 1992). He has used the Homeric legends and Homeric characters to crystallize the Caribbean experience. In 1992, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature, thereby bringing great visibility to Caribbean writers as a whole. His book of poetry, White Egrets, (2010) won the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, and in 2015, he received the Griffin Poetry Prize for his contribution to Canadian poetry.

Brathwaite, also a poet of international fame, has brought notoriety to Caribbean poetry not only through his writing and his oral presentation but also through his scholarly endeavors in Caribbean language and culture. Both Walcott and Brathwaite have transcended their Caribbean ethos to become world-renowned poets, and both have brought Caribbean poetry from its colonial vision into the international arena and have turned Caribbean dialect into what Brathwaite calls “nation language” of the Caribbean. In 2006, his poetry collection Born to Slow Horses (2006) won the Griffin Poetry Prize.

Post-independence period

The poetry of the post-independence period in the Caribbean is more exuberant than the poetry of the colonial era. Brathwaite affirms that Caribbean poets have found a new mode of expression that he calls “nation language.” This New World language might sound like English, “but in its contours, its rhythm and timbre, its sound explosions, it is not English.…” Three poets who demonstrate this new language are Grace Nichols, Fred D’Aguiar, and Bongo Jerry.

Grace Nichols

Grace Nichols (born in Guyana in 1950), whose roots are in Guyana, insists that her poetry comes out of “a heightened imagistic use of language that does things to the heart and head.” Her works include Picasso, I Want My Face Back (2009), I Have Crossed an Ocean (2010), The Insomnia Poems (2017), and Passport to Here and There, Bloodaxe (2020). In 2021, she received the King's Gold Medal for Poetry for her lifetime contribution to British poetry.

She is at ease with both languages, standard English as well as Creole or nation language, because for her, the two languages are “constantly intercepting.” The blending of these languages is evident in the poem “I Is a Long-Memoried Woman.” Here the persona states:

From dih pout

of mih mouth

from dih

treacherous

calm of mih smile

you can tell

I is a long-memoried woman.

Fred D’Aguiar

Fred D’Aguiar (born in 1960 in London and sent to Guyana as a child) fuses folk tradition with standard English and nation language. In “Mama Dot Learns to Fly,” D’Aguiar explores the myth of the flying African. Mama Dot, looking at a film of inventors trying to fly, decides that she wants to see an ancestor, so with “Her equipment straightforward/ Thought-up to bring the lot/ To her: come leh we gaff girl.” The idea here, as Toni Morrison suggests in Song of Solomon (1977), is that people of African descent do not need the invention of flying machines because they have the natural ability to fly. Much of the flying concept is suggested in the final line of the poem when Mama Dot says: “Come let us go off, girl.” His 2009 poetry collection, Continental Shelf, was a finalist for the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, and in 2019, he won the Cholmondeley Award in the United Kingdom.

Bongo Jerry

Unlike Nichols and D’Aguiar, who fuse standard English and national language, Bongo Jerry, a Rastafarian poet, uses a language that Brathwaite calls “the roots and underground link of all the emerging forces” of the New World literature. Bongo sees the new language as a liberating tool for people of the Caribbean. In the poem “MABRAK” the poet proclaims:

Save the YOUNG

from the language that MAN teach,

the doctrine Pope preach

skin bleach

HOW ELSE?…MAN must use MEN language to

carry this message.

The message is that the language that has been taught by the European, “BABEL TONGUES,” must be silenced, and the poets of the Caribbean must “recall and recollect BLACK SPEECH.”

Caribbean poetry has evolved from an imitation art into a dynamic expression of the cultural traditions of the people. In reclaiming their submerged language, a language of African origins, poets are affirming their heritage and their pride in their newfound freedom. This pride is also reflected in the determination of Caribbean women poets to attain the same status as their male counterparts without sacrificing their gender identity and their poetic voice. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, women scholars and poets were uniting in an effort to achieve the recognition that for so long had been denied to them. Female poets like Una Marson (1905-1965), Velma Pollard (b. 1937), and Mahadai Das (b. 1954) paved the way for Caribbean poets and writers like Myriam J. A. Chancy (b. 1970) and Safiya Sinclair (b. 1984).

In the past, Caribbean artists often left home to pursue success abroad. However, advances in communication technology have increased contact between the Caribbean and the rest of the world. Also, independence has resulted in an affirmation of cultural liberation, making migration less likely, and freedom has nurtured a spirit of creativity in Caribbean poets.

Bibliography

Baugh, Edward. Derek Walcott. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Brathwaite, Edward Kamau. A History of the Voice: The Development of National Language in Anglophone Caribbean Poetry. London, New Beacon Press, 1984.

Brown, Stewart, and Mark McWatt, eds. The Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005.

Bucknor, Michael A. The Routledge Companion to Anglophone Caribbean Literature. Oxfordshire, Routledge, 2011.

Burnett, Paula, ed. The Penguin Book of Caribbean Verse in English. New York City, Penguin Global, 2006.

Georges, Richard. Where I See the Sun: Contemporary Poetry in the Virgin Islands: Tortola, Virgin Gorda, Anegada, Jost van Dyke: A New Anthology. St. Martin, House of Nehesi Publishers, 2016.

Horrell, Georgie, et al. Give the Ball to the Poet: A New Anthology of Caribbean Poetry. London, Commonwealth Education Trust, 2014.

Jenkins, Lee M. The Language of Caribbean Poetry: Boundaries of Expression. Gainesville, University Press of Florida, 2004.

Miller, Kei, ed. New Caribbean Poetry: An Anthology. Manchester, Carcanet, 2007.

Morrison, Derrilyn E. Making Hstory Happen: Caribbean Poetry in America. Newcastle Upon Tyne, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015.

Narain, Denise DeCaires. Contemporary Caribbean Women’s Poetry: Making Style. Oxfordshire, Routledge, 2002.

Williams, Emily Allen. Anglophone Caribbean Poetry, 1970-2001: An Annotated Bibliography. Westport, Greenwood Press, 2002.

Windt-Ayoubi, Hilda de, and Pieter Muysken. Translingualism, Translation and Caribbean Poetry: Mother Tongue Has Crossed the Ocean: Lenga Di Mama a Krusa Laman. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2022.