MHRD UGC ePG Pathshala

Subject: English
Principal Investigator: Prof. Tutun Mukherjee, University of Hyderabad

Paper 06: African and Caribbean Writing in English

Paper Coordinator: Prof. T. Vijay Kumar, Osmania University

Module No. 05: African and Caribbean Poetry - An Overview

Content Writer: Ms. Aparna Prem, EFLU, Hyderabad

Content Reviewer: Prof. T. Vijay Kumar, Osmania University

Language Editor: Prof. T. Vijay Kumar, Osmania University

AFRICAN AND CARIBBEAN POETRY—AN OVERVIEW

This module gives an overview of the poetry from two different geographical areas—
the Caribbean islands and Africa. Because of their complicated colonial histories and
influences, both the countries write in many languages other than English. However, this
module would focus more on Anglophone Caribbean and African poetry.

African Poetry
Today’s concept of African poetry constitutes a distinct idea of accepting all the
African countries as one. However, the geographical, racial and temporal differences in
colonialism, struggles for independence and the postcolonial politics in each country of the
continent also reflect in their contribution to the creation of the canon of African poetry.
Regionalism added to indigenous poetic traditions make it more complicated to have a
definite theorizing of African poetry. England, France, and Portugal are the three main
colonial forces that governed the continent, the influence and resistance of which still define
African writing.

Negritude, Nationalism and Language

One easier method of categorizing African poetry is based on language, which is
majorly depended on the colonial influences. The practice of assimilation and regrouping of
the tribes followed by France and Portugal during the colonial era rewrote the history of the
African countries almost forever. When the pressure to accept colonial ideologies increased
on the African tribes, Negritude asserted African traditions and reclaimed their identities.
Negritude thus became a social as well as literary response to colonialism. Léopold Sédar
Senghor, Senegalese poet and political leader was one of the literary and political figures of
Negritude. He led his nation’s independence movement and his poetic language highlights his
own experiences of political struggle and violence. Indigenous languages, European
languages and pidgin version as well as dialects are mixed in most of the literary works of
Africa. At the same time, bringing together Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone
linguistic traditions into a single idea of African poetry is not that easy too. For the
postcolonial Africa, with its diverse regional as well as colonial linguistic influences,
multiplicity and the related struggles define their identity and tradition.

Christopher Ifekandu Okigbo (Nigeria)

Okigbo was one of the traditional African writers from Nigeria, who was heavily
influenced by Greek, Latin and European literatures and traditions. Modern poetry, especially
the poems of T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, influenced his writing style and choice of themes.
Though he died at the Nsukka battlefront while fighting for the independence of Biafra, his
contribution to African poetry has been immense. He explored the themes that vary from war
to nature, tradition to modernism. Spirituality and freedom were the ruling concepts of his life
and his poems. In the beginning of the poem “The Passage”, Okigbo places nature on a
supreme pedestal and considers the nature the muse of his writing. The ‘passage’ is the
spiritual experience he goes through, by considering himself diminutive in front of the
colossal nature. The pain of struggle for freedom is vented out through such spiritual
passages, though which Okigbo travels to find his self.

John Pepper Clark (Nigeria)

Clark wrote poems that highlighted the stark realities of Nigeria and of Africa. The
political and social symbos he chose point towards a critical view of national and
international relations. Though the symbols and themes overtly appeared to be simple, the
politics of national and humanity were openly criticized in his works. Some poems also
foreground nature as the supreme power that defines humanity. As he was also part of the
Nigerian Civil War, the contrasting images of war and peace appeared in some of his poems.
However, he can also be considered as one of the traditional writers with Okigbo and Wole
Soyinka as he upheld his traditional heritage in most of his poems. Describing and re-
narrating history was one the techniques he chose to find his essence and identity. His book
The Casualties: Poems 1966-68 describes the true cruelties and violence happened during the
Nigeria-Biafra Civil War. Through his poems, Clark contributed to the building and
imagination of a postcolonial Nigeria.

Mazisi Kunene (South Africa)

Mazisi Kunene can be considered one of the modern poets of Africa, careful
observation of language and themes used. Kunene, who wrote in Zulu language, tried to
move away from the traditional classical influences in his writing style. His master’s thesis
was titled An Analytical Survey of Zulu Poetry, Both Traditional and Modern. He keenly
observed and had a deep knowledge about the poetic techniques in Zulu poetry. He was
against following the traditional paths that poets like Okigbo and Clark took. He wanted a
more analytical documentation of the South African political and social scenario, rather that
re-telling the religious and classical traditions. His Zulu Poems (1970) was a collection of his
translated poems from Zulu to English. His contribution towards the genre of translated
works was thus immense. One of the most famous poems was Emperor Shaka the Great, an
epic poem that narrated the life and history of a Zulu leader. It is also a narrative of the
history of Zulu language. The epic style that he chose to conceive his ideas of his land, was
part of the modern tradition he followed. His other works like Anthem of the Decades
highlighted religious and spiritual aspects of the society.

Okot p’Bitek (Uganda)

Similar to Kunene’s technique of using long poem narrative form in documenting or
rewriting the history of his country, Okot p’Bitek too gained recognition for his epic poem
Song of Lawino. This long poem portrayed the life of a rural African wife whose husband is
trapped in a westernized lifestyle. Song of Lawino depicts the contrasts between rural life and
modernized city life through the characters of husband and wife. It also questions the
relevance and influence of industrialization and Americanization in the rural areas of Africa.
Moreover, this poem describes the struggle of a modern man who finds it difficult to choose
between the dualities of tradition and modernity, and of the black and the white. The long
poem is also a documentation of traditional values of Africa, which the poet wants to be
preserved through his verses. The Okot School of Poetry is a developing genre in African
poetry in which works follow a verse monologue technique in traditional song form. It is also
called The East African Song School. Okot also wrote a sequel Song of Ocol, which was the
husband’s reply to the wife. His other works focus on contemporary and relevant social and
political topics.

Gabriel Okara (Nigeria)

The extreme dichotomies of life, especially the experiences between European
influences and African traditions are intensely depicted in the poems of Nigerian poet Gabriel
Okara. The symbolic landscapes and African imageries are superimposed with English
linguistic techniques, and this blend forms the major characteristic of Okara’s poems. Most of
his poems like “Once Upon a Time” and “Piano and Drum”, deal with the old customs and
traditions of Africa that are being threatened by the European manipulating powers. In “Once
Upon a Time”, Okara describes how artificial life has become:
. . . ‘Feel at home!’ ‘Come again’:
they say, and when I come
again and feel
at home, once, twice,
 there will be no thrice-
for then I find doors shut on me
So I have learned many things, son.
I have learned to wear many faces
like dresses – home face,
office face, street face, host face,cocktail face,
with all their conforming smiles
like a fixed portrait smile.
And I have learned too
to laugh with only my teeth
and shake hands without my heart.
I have also learned to say, ‘Goodbye’,
when I mean ‘Good-riddance’:
to say ‘Glad to meet you’,
without being glad; and to say ‘It’s been
nice talking to you’, after being bored.

As described through the words of a father to his son, Okara records as well as warns the
changes that the African culture has gone through because of overpowering influences.

Kofi Awoonor (Ghana)

Kofi Awoonor was born in an Ewe ethnic group in Ghana. Awoonor’s grandmother
was an Ewe dirge singer and he was influenced by Ewe music, culture and tradition, which he
tried to incorporate into his verses. By providing a modern form of re-narration and
documentation, Awoonor gave his ethnic cultures a platform to develop as well as influence
other cultures. At the same time, this technique can be seen as a way of resisting European
and American influences on the African ethnicities. Other major themes were religion,
spirituality, philosophy, life, death and exile. One of the most famous of his collection of
poems is Rediscovery and Other Poems (1964). Again, similar to other African poets,
Awoonor has also followed a path to rediscover the identity of the self through poetry and
imagination. Through his poems, he tried to find out the wide range of possibilities that a
vernacular, ethnic language can offer. The dirge form that he imbibed from his childhood
days, blended with an urge to hold on to ethnic traditions, constitutes the major focus of most
of his poetry. He died in a terrorist attack in Nairobi, Kenya.
James David Rubadiri (Malawi)
 James Rubadiri is a Malawian poet, playwright and novelist. Rubadiri places himself
as one of the major poets who focuses on the cultural and political changes in post-
independent Africa. Although he does not deny the relation between colonialism and the
present day African poetry, Rubadiri highlights the resistance of African traditions on
westernization. One of his famous poems “An Africa Thunderstorm” clearly depicts the
African predicament of fighting against the storm that comes from the West that would take
away their ethnic and regional cultures and traditions. He describes the storm of Western
influence with sarcasm and anger:
From the west
Clouds come hurrying with the wind
Turning sharply
Here and there
Like a plague of locusts
Whirling,
Tossing up things on its tail
Like a madman chasing nothing.

Caribbean Poetry
The Caribbean region, with its diverse cultural identities and complex histories, has
produced evocative works of art that devote itself to a struggle to find roots and identities.
Categorizing Caribbean poetry and poets is in itself a complicated task. If we have to arrange
the poets according to language, there are poets who write in French, Spanish, Dutch and
English in the Caribbean, according to their colonial influences. Slavery, colonial rule,
struggle for independence, freedom, postcolonialism, globalization, culture, language, nation
and identity are the most common themes of Caribbean poetry in general. Adding to these
themes, certain poets who have moved out of their homelands to America, Canada and
Europe have their own different perspective and understanding of their islands. In those exile
identities, the loss is doubly complicated, as loss of the land is added to the forgotten history.
Derek Walcott, Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Linton Kwesi Johnson and Louise Bennet are
some of the poets who have created an outsider point of view of their lands. One major
Francophone poet without whom the idea of Caribbean poetry would be incomplete is Aimé
Césaire, who is a Francophone writer from Martinique. He was one of the influential figures
in the negritude movement. Some of the major poets from the West Indies are
 Edward Baugh (Jamaica)
 Louise Bennett (Jamaica)
 John Agard (Guyana)
 Merle Collins (Grenada)
 Cyril Dabydeen (Guyana)
 Derek Walcott (St. Lucia)
 David Dabydeen (Guyana)
 James Berry (Jamaica)
 Grace Nichols (Guyana)
 Jean Binta Breeze (Jamaica)
 Edward Kamau Brathwaite (Barbados)
 Jan Carew (Guyana)
 Martin Carter (Guyana)
 Wayne Brown (Trinidad and Tobago)
 Brian Chan (Guyana)
 Lorna Goodison (Jamaica)
 Cecil Gray (Trinidad and Tobago)
 Kendel Hippolyte (Saint Lucia)
 Arnold H. Itwaru (Guyana)
 Fred D’Aguiar (Guyana)
 Mahadai Das (Guyana)
 John Figueroa (Jamaica)
 Anson Gonzalez (Trinidad and Tobago)
Lloyd Brown, who points out the nation-building aesthetics visible in the works of
Brathwaite, Wynter and Lamming in his 1978 book West Indian Poetry, narrates the history
of Caribbean poetry as “a movement from the derivativeness and colonial ‘conversions’ of
the earlier years to the more imaginative and complex ‘transformations’ of the contemporary
period” (11, qtd in Donnell 41). The Caribbean, where we find traces of various migrants, is
named as the “archetypal ‘migrant’ space” where “multiple diasporas intersect – African,
South Asian, Irish, Scottish, Chinese” (Donnell 84).

Language
Though the two major languages used in writing poetry are French and English, one
of the major characteristic of Caribbean poetry is the use of Creole. Edward Kamau
Brathwaite created the idea of ‘nation language’ by elevating the language of slaves and other
people who were brought into the Caribbean islands to a national level:
We in the Caribbean have a . . . kind of plurality: we have English, which is the
imposed language on much of the archipelago. It is an imperial language, as are
French, Dutch and Spanish. We also have what we call creole English, which is a
mixture of English and an adaption that English took in the new environment of the
Caribbean when it became mixed with the other important languages. We have also
what is called nation language, which is the king of English spoken by the people
who were brought to the Caribbean, not the official English now, but the language of
slaves and labourers, the servants who were brought in. (5-6)
Nation language is thus a way of reclaiming a Caribbean identity, which is independent from
the influences of colonialism and colonial history. Through nation language writers claim
their individual identity and the identity as a ‘people’. Even though not all poets followed
Brathwaite’s idea of nation language, the quest for a distinct way of expressing their identity
can be seen in most of the Caribbean poets. Other than the different European languages like
Spanish, English, French, Dutch and Portuguese spoken in the Caribbean islands, creolization
has given rise to a more number of languages and dialects that are blends of European,
African, Asian and indigenous voices. The term and the idea of ‘Caribbean Literature’ are
incomplete without its inevitable relation with the plurality of languages and cultures that
constitute it.

Rastafarianism, Reggae and Dub Movement

The Rastafari movement is a Afro-centric religious movement based in the Caribbean island
of Jamaica that has no monuments or buildings and it propagates harmony with nature. This
religion focuses on the individual and rejects the existing beliefs of Christianity and other
religions followed in the Afro-Caribbean regions. A universal freedom that Rastafarianism
propagated was communicated to reggae songs and poems.
Mutabaruka, Linton Kwesi Johnson, and Michael Smith were the founders of the Dub
movement. Christopher Laird, John Agard, Frederick Williams, Fred D’Aguiar, Valerie
Bloom, Jean Binta Breeze and Lilliam Allen are also part of the movement. Dub movement
has a specific language and rhythm and used vocal instruments to convey both cries and
silences. Linton Kwesi Johnson is a Jamaican poet based in London he is widely considered
to the father of reggae dub poetry, a mix of reggae music and spoken verse. Mutabaruka, born
Allan Hope, is a Jamaican Rastafari dub poet. He used every-day language that could be
easily understood. An excerpt from his poem “Nursery Rhyme Lament” would show how he
turns the nursery rhymes and accepted frameworks to sarcasm and irony.
fus time
jack an' jill
use fi run up de hill everyday
now dem get pipe
wata rate increase

everday dem woulda reincarnate humpty dumpty

fi fall of de wall
likkle bway blue
who love to blow im horn to de sheep in the meddow
likkle bway blue grow up now
an de sheep dem get curried
ina likkle cold suppa shap dang de street. . .
Here Mutabaruka uses a blend of sub-dialect and nursery rhymes to point out the realities of
the society, which is different from what is taught to the child. When sarcasm is blended with
words from nursery rhymes, the poem becomes a way of fighting back to the social belief
systems. While Rastafarianism and dub poetry were part of the struggle against the social and
cultural systems, they also contributed towards an understanding of Caribbean identity. By
presenting the poems orally, the poetic expressions were made available to a larger audience.

Edward Kamau Brathwaite (Barbados)

For Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Barbadian poet and historian, a creolized view of the
Caribbean plays a major role in imagining the nation. He comments, “I say you have to be
everything to bring those fragments together because fragments by their very nature are
everything . . . They are in fact everything, little seeds growing throughout the scattered
diaspora, throughout the Caribbean” (qtd in Torres-Saillant 59). The works of Brathwaite laid
the foundation for the linguistic identity of the Caribbean region, the creole identity that
became one of the pedestals of Caribbean nationalism. For Brathwaite, “Nation language is
the language which is influenced very strongly by the African model, the African aspect of
our New World/Caribbean heritage” (“Nation Language” 311). Though the nation language
uses ‘English’ lexicon, “its contours, its rhythm and timbre, its sound explosions” are not in
English (311). In the poem “Wings of a Dove”, Brathwaite describes the condition of a
Rastafarian in the contemporary Caribbean society. He points out, with a philosophical awe,
the poverty-stricken reality of the Caribbean nation:
Brother Man the Rasta
man, beard full of lichens
brain full of lice
watched the mice
come up through the floor-
boards of his down-
town, shanty-town kitchen,
and smiled. Blessed are the poor
in health, he mumbled,
that they should inherit this
wealth. Blessed are the meek
hearted, he grumbled,
for theirs is this stealth.

Derek Walcott (St. Lucia)

The 1992 Nobel Prize winner Derek Walcott, who was born in St. Lucia, wrote poems
by taking the symbols from nature and personal experiences. His poems demonstrate an urge
to find the self, and the identity of the land. He goes back to the classics and European
influences just to realize that past is not enough to create and imagine a future. The sea, the
islands, ships, gulls, sand and surf blended with European history and African heritage pave a
platform for Walcott to reclaim his identity.
That sail which leans on light,
tired of islands
a schooner beating up the Caribbean
for home, could be Odysseus,
home-bound on the Aegean;
that father and husband's
longing, under gnarled sour grapes, is
like the adulterer hearing Nausicaa's name
in every gull's outcry.
This brings nobody peace.
………………………………………….
The classics can console. But not enough. (“Sea Grapes”)

Jean Binta Breeze (Jamaica)

Jean Binta Breeze wrote about woman’s life and experiences along with other socially
relevant themes, and added a new perspective to the world of dub poetry. As she was raised
in rural Jamaica, her poems’ linguistic and thematic structures displayed a natural way of
expressing ideas in verse. Through her poems, she made her writings associate with rural
Caribbean identities. Most of the time, the narrator would be a native woman who is
struggling in another place, where is a minority. Her poems represented minority
communities, women and the Caribbean diaspora.

Claude McKay (Jamaican-American)

Festus Claudius “Claude” McKay (1889-1948) was a Jamaican writer who migrated
to Harlem, New York, USA. He was one of the seminal figures in the Harlem Renaissance, in
which black immigrants or the African-Americans struggled for identity through art and
literature. His 1922 poetry collection Harlem Shadows was one among the first books
published during Harlem Renaissance. His other poetry collections are Songs of Jamaica
(1912), Spring in New Hampshire and Other Poems (1920) and The Selected Poems of
Claude McKay (1953). Like his novels, his poetry also portrayed black individuals in search
of identity in a white world. In one of his most famous poems “America”, he describes the
land by focusing on the dualities he experience as a black immigrant.

Lorna Goodison (Jamaica)

Lorna Goodison has become one of the internationally known contemporary
Anglophone Caribbean writers. With a focus on motherhood, sexuality, and equality,
Goodison’s poems highlight gender as well as racial issues. A blend of Jamaican Creole and
English gives her poems a definite linguistic pattern that adds to the thematic prominence of
Caribbean identity. However, most of her best poems celebrate womanhood, the different
roles played by a woman throughout her life. The poem “For My Mother May I Inherit Half
Her Strength” shows her respect and awe towards her mother. Her own experiences as a
woman, a mother, especially in the Jamaican context also highlight violence, poverty, and
politics and other stark realities of life.

Martin Carter (Guyana)

Martin Carter was one of the major poets from the Caribbean who was part of the
political movement for national independence. He was arrested by the British colonial
government and during his imprisonment, Carter wrote his most famous collection of poems
Poems of Resistance, which was published later in 1954. His poems convey a strong political
message, with anger and frustration. However, he ends with a positive note towards a bright
future of the nation. The poem “I Come from the Nigger Yard” is one of the best examples to
show how the “sad music” that hovers on the land, silences and “uncountable miseries” still
make him dream of “the world of to-morrow” towards which he “turn with [his] strength”.

Conclusion
Mapping of the literary tradition of African and Caribbean poetry goes back to the
oral customs and practices that still becomes the thematic structure of the same. From a
postcolonial perspective, a search for the possibilities of inventing or re-discovering an
identity for the self and the nation becomes one of the foremost priorities in writing verse.
The modern poetic techniques find the meaning of the self in the dilemma between the
colonial past and postcolonial present. The critical positions that these and more poets take to
create a literature of their own, arise from a complex poetic tradition that limits them into a
boundary but at the same time allow them to explore and recreate new practices. Today’s
African and Caribbean poetry also have to deal with issues like globalization, ethnic
conflicts, immigration and multiculturalism. Forming a new canon also calls for an
international recognition, which in turn would cause them to sacrifice their cultural and
linguistic preferences. When the in-between identities gain more space and recognition
through these poets, the question that remains is of tradition and modernity. Though these
poets endeavour to create a balance between the dichotomies of identity, one has to be wary
of the politics of inclusion and exclusion as well, that inevitably goes behind any kind of
identity-creation.

Works Cited
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