The Her-story of Caribbean Cricket Poetry

Abstract

This paper introduces and explores the relationship between Caribbean female poets and the game of cricket given cricket's historical importance to the Anglophone Caribbean and the numerous appearances of cricket within Caribbean literature. For if we are to appreciate cricket as a significant activity for the Caribbean, then the relationship between women and the game must also be investigated. In this context, it is noteworthy that a number of Caribbean women writers have mobilized cricket in their work, drawing on and contesting the game's socio-political position and demonstrating its availability to them as a means of capturing their own Caribbean and life experiences. After briefly introducing the place of women in Caribbean cricket poetry, the discussion focuses on the cricketing works of Anim-Addo, who dedicated both of her poetry collections to her mother, Jane Joseph, a Grenada player during the post-war period. Notably, Anim-Addo takes up her mother's cricketing 'herstory' and infuses it with her own diasporic idiom of feminist transgression, social reclamation and boundary crossings. The paper concludes by examining how Jean Breeze has mobilized the sport as a metaphor for female sexuality, sexual enjoyment and self articulation in her poem 'on cricket, sex and housework'.