Originally published: New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Teaching Caribbean Poetry will inform and inspire readers with a love for, and understanding of, the dynamic world of Caribbean poetry. This unique volume sets out to enable secondary English teachers and their students to engage with a wide range of poetry, past and present; to understand how histories of the Caribbean underpin the poetry and relate to its interpretation; and to explore how Caribbean poetry connects with environmental issues. Written by literary experts with extensive classroom experience, this lively and accessible book is immersed in classroom practice, and examines: • popular aspects of Caribbean poetry, such as performance poetry; • different forms of Caribbean language; • the relationship between music and poetry; • new voices, as well as well-known and distinguished poets, including John Agard (winner of the Queen’s Medal for Poetry, 2012), Kamau Brathwaite, Lorna Goodison, Olive Senior and Derek Walcott; • the crucial themes within Caribbean poetry such as inequality, injustice, racism, ‘othering’, hybridity, diaspora and migration; • the place of Caribbean poetry on the GCSE/CSEC and CAPE syllabi, covering appropriate themes, poetic forms and poets for exam purposes. Throughout this absorbing book, the authors aim to combat the widespread ‘fear’ of teaching poetry, enabling teachers to teach it with confidence and enthusiasm and helping students to experience the rewards of listening to, reading, interpreting, performing and writing Caribbean poetry.

Caribbean poetry written in English has been attracting growing amounts of scholarly attention. The first substantial annotated bibliography of primary and secondary materials related to the topic, this reference chronicles the development of Anglophone Caribbean poetry from 1970 through 2001. Included are nearly 900 entries for anthologies, reference works, conference proceedings, critical studies, interviews, and recorded works. The volume also includes a chronology, an overview of the development and significance of Caribbean poetry in English, and extensive indexes. In 1971 the Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies held a conference on West Indian literature at the University of the West Indies. This was the first assembly for the discussion of West Indian literature by West Indian people on West Indian soil. Since then, interest in Caribbean poetry written in English has grown dramatically. Caribbean poetry was influenced by the American Black Power movement during the 1970s, and women poets began to contribute their voices throughout the 1980s. Caribbean poets have, in turn, gained greater access to publishing outlets, resulting in a wider international readership and a corresponding increase in scholarly and critical studies. This book is the first substantial annotated bibliography of primary and secondary materials related to Caribbean poetry written in English. The volume begins with the rise of interest in Anglophone Caribbean poetry in the 1970s and continues through 2001. Included are entries for nearly 900 anthologies, reference works, conference proceedings, critical studies, interviews, and recordings. The entries are grouped in chapters devoted to particular types of works. In addition, the volume includes a chronology, a discussion of the history of Anglophone Caribbean poetry, and extensive indexes.

This collection is an invaluable academic selection and will provide a fine introduction for the general reader interested in the lyricism of Caribbean poetry.

This text provides detailed readings of individual poems by women poets whose work has not yet received the sustained critical attention it deserves.

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, University of Constance, language: English, abstract: The aim of the following paper is an analysis of selected poems of Claire Harris and Olive Senior in regard of the theme that connects the poetic work of these two women writers – identity. At first glance, it might come as quite a surprise to some readers that the literary artist Harris and Senior share a connection in their poetical exploration of themes. However after having a short glance, a commonalty between them will became apparent. Due to the subject the essay is informed by concepts of feminism, post-colonialism and cultural studies in order to depict the different ways in which identity is addressed in their work. The aim of the following paper is an analyses of selected poems of Claire Harris and Olive Senior in regard of the theme that connects the poetic work of these two women writers – identity. At first glance, it might come as quite a surprise to some readers that the literary artist Harris and Senior share a connection in their poetical exploration of themes. However after having a short glance, a commonalty between them will became apparent. Due to the subject the essay is informed by concepts of feminism, post-colonialism and cultural studies in order to depict the different ways in which identity is addressed in their work.

Nicolas Guillen is generally lionized by the critics as an exponent of an exotic version of mainstream Latin American poetry, a somewhat avant-garde negroid poetry (literally, poesia negroide) He has also been claimed by the experts, and justly so, as a member of the Afro-American literary community, so his name is mentioned in the same breath as those eminent literary figures who were the principals in the Harlem Renaissance: Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Sterling Brown, Langston Hughes. The West Indian character owes its distinctiveness to the African cultural heritage and is, in effect, a legitimate neo-African cultural manifestation. This African West Indian character accounts for the originality and basic value of Guillen 's art and links Guillen inextricably to the rich popular poetic tradition of the region.

Rev. ed. of: The Princeton encyclopedia of poetry and poetics / Alex Preminger and T.V.F. Brogan, co-editors; Frank J. Warnke, O.B. Hardison, Jr., and Earl Miner, associate editors. 1993.

A study of the literatures written in European languages in the West Indies with particular attention to Pedro Mir (Dominican Republic), Kamau Brathwaite (Barbados) and Rene Depestre (Haiti).