Poetry of oppression, resistance and liberation

Abstract

For many young people-indeed for many British, European or American people of almost any age-the Caribbean represents a world of leisure, luxury and life at its most exotic. As holiday destinations of choice for the wealthy, the islands of the Caribbean offer idyllic escape from life’s stresses-places where one can enjoy rest and recreation . . . whilst gently humming Bob Marley’s ‘Don’t worry about a thing . . . ’. Good weather (that is balmy, warm days and nights) is what the fortunate traveller expects, along with 5 * hospitality. Unless, of course, you come from one of the many islands that make up the Caribbean, in which case the most obvious notion associated with the West Indies is, simply, ‘home’. Whether read ‘at home’ or elsewhere, however, the poetry of the Caribbean is powerfully evocative. In much of this poetry, the very sound of the language employed is distinctively Caribbean and the images used are often vibrantly allusive to a sense of place (as indicated in the Introduction and Chapter 1). Landscape, seascape, fl ora and fauna gesture fi rmly to ‘island life’ that stands in many ways in direct contrast with the ‘island life’ of the British Isles. Furthermore-and dissonant with notions of rest and recreation-much Caribbean poetry also engages with a distinctive sense of history, offering particular and in many ways deeply traumatic perspectives on the ‘roots’ of Caribbean life. This is, of course, history that connects intimately with the history of British, European and American children in ways that they may not immediately recognise. Whether teaching Caribbean poetry to Caribbean children or to children from elsewhere, this sense of history-understanding it and connecting to it-is a vital opportunity for the teacher. As children engage with the poetry and its roots, fresh, illuminating and liberating perspectives are offered. In this chapter, I will consider how the poetry of the Caribbean has the potential to enact what McGillis considers as the core impulse of post-colonial texts:Postcolonialism as an activity of the mind is quite simply intent on both acknowledging the history of oppression and liberating the study of literature from traditional and Eurocentric ways of seeing . . . The postcolonial writer confronts directly the forces of cultural domination and racial intolerance.