Barabajan Poems
{{Short description|Brathwaite's postcolonial writings}}
{{Infobox book
| italic title =
| name = Barabajan Poems
| image = File:Barabajan_Poems_book_cover.png
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| caption =
| author = Kamau Brathwaite
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| country = Jamaica and United States
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| subject = Barbadian poetry History and criticism, Postcolonialism
| genre = Criticism, interpretation, etc
| set_in = The Caribbean
| publisher = Savacou Publications
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| published = 1994
| media_type = Print
| pages = 380+
| awards =
| isbn = 9780964042438
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| oclc = 31099127
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Barabajan Poems, 1492–1992 is a collection of various types of writing, authored by the Barbados postcolonial author Kamau Brathwaite and published by Savacou Publications in 1994.
{{cite journal
| last =Reckin
| first =Ann
| title =Kamau Brathwaite's Prose [and] Poetry as Sound-Space
| journal =Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal
| volume = 1
| issue = 1
| pages = Article 5
| publisher =University of Miami
| date = December 2003
| url = https://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1058&context=anthurium
| jstor =
| issn =
| doi =10.33596/anth.4
| access-date =15 February 2020| doi-access =free
}} 17 pages. Free PDF download.Otto, Melanie. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=32309 "Edward Brathwaite: Barabajan Poems"]. The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 4:. 22 May 2012. Anglophone Writing and Culture of Central America and the Caribbean.
In this collection, readers experience a number of Brathwaite's overwhelming ordeals in his recent life, shared honestly and sincerely.Savory, Elaine. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/40150620 Wordsongs & Wordwounds / "Homecoming: Kamau Brathwaite's Barabajan Poems"]. World Literature Today. 68.4, Autumn 1994, pp. 750–57. {{JSTOR|40150620}}. It is not only autobiographical but also represents a community defined by a Caribbean culture in transition from colonialism to a modernized independent economic state within the "new world order". It is fictionally and spiritually a magic book, serving as a counterweight to Prospero's books of magic in Shakespeare's playThe Tempest, and is a foil for the bygone landlords Christopher Columbus (1992 was the Columbus Quincentenary) and the fictional Prospero.
Sycorax the muse
In an attempt to give voice to unspoken indigenous cultures, Brathwaite's postcolonial poems outline the history of the Caribbean through Sycorax's eyes. Sycorax is presented as Brathwaite's muse, possessing him and his computer to give full voice to the history of the silenced, who in Brathwaite's philosophy are not only Caribbean natives, but any culture under-represented during the colonial period.
According to Brathwaite, "[W]hat happened to Caliban in The Tempest was that his alliances were laughable, his alliances were fatal, his alliances were ridiculous. He chose the wrong people to make God." Brathwaite "considered Sycorax, Caliban's mother, 'a paradigm for all women of the Third World, who have not yet, despite all the effort, reached that trigger of visibility which is necessary for a whole society.'" Gowda, H. H. Anniah. [https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/H1420058207/LitRC?u=mlin_c_marlpl&sid=LitRC&xid=b6466228 "Creation in the Poetic Development of Kamau Brathwaite"]. Poetry Criticism, edited by Janet Witalec, vol. 56, Gale, 2004. Gale Literature Resource Center. Retrieved 6 February 2020. Originally published in World Literature Today, vol. 68, no. 4, Autumn 1994, pp. 691–696.
See also
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
External links
- [http://dloc.com Many works of Caribbean Literature] openly available through the Digital Library of the Caribbean.
Further reading
- Jonathan Goldberg, [https://books.google.com/books?id=zwcoKt7diQEC&q=%22Barabajan+Poems%22+&pg=PA89 Tempest in the Caribbean], pages 89, 90ff.
- Gordon Collier (ed.) and various other editors, [https://books.google.com/books?id=LoFyDQAAQBAJ&dq=%22Barabajan+Poems%22+-wikipedia&pg=PA178 The Cross-Cultural Legacy], pages 177, 178, 179.
- (2004) [https://www.tandfonline.com/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.1080%2F0890576042000239573 Poems by Kamau Brathwaite], Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas, 37:1, 56–64, Taylor & Francis. {{doi|10.1080/0890576042000239573}}
Category:African diaspora literature