Caribbean Women Poets - Disarming Tradition
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_misc/mj.200011216Keywords:
Caribbean, Postcolonial, Poetry, Women poets, Tradition, Culture, Creoleness, Feminism, SlaveryAbstract
This article sets out to explore the way in which women writers of Caribbean origin express various concerns relating to their heritage through poetry which encompasses not only their position as women seen from a feminist perspective but also from historical and contemporary positions in contrasting societies. It argues that an overall need to find an identity linked to the past is paramount for establishing a position for women in the future, and that the poetry achieves this through breaking with the traditional notions of women and poets. The article focuses particularly on the work by Grace Nichols and Loma Goodison.
Downloads
References
ASHCROFT, Bill, Gareth GRIFFITHS, and Helen TIFFIN. 1989. The Empire Writes Back, Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures. London: Routledge.
BENITEZ-ROJO, Antonio. 1996. The Repeating Island, The Caribbean and the Postmodern Perspective. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
BENNETT, Louise. 1989. "Independance". In Markham, E.A. (ed.). Hinterland, Caribbean Poetry from the West Indies a:nd Britain. Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe Books: 51-52.
BHABHA, Homi. 1994. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.
BIRBALSINGH, Frank (ed.). 1996. Frontiers of Caribbean Literature. London: Macmillan.
BROOKS, Ann. 1997. Postfeminisms. Feminism, cultural theory and cultural forms. London: Routledge.
BlJRNETT, Paula. 1986. The Penguin Book of Caribbean Verse in English. London: Penguin.
CARBY, Hazel V. 1997. "White women listen! Black feminisma nd the boundaries of sisterhood". In Mirza, Heidi Safia (ed.). Black British Feminism. London: Routledge: 45-53.
CAREW Jan. 1996. "The Wild Coast". In Birbalsingh, Frank (ed.). Frontiers of Caribbean Literature. London: Macmillan: 42-53.
CIXOUS, Helene. 1990. "The Laugh of the Medusa". In Walder, Dennis (ed.). Literature in the Modern World, Critical Essays and Documents. New York: OUP: 316-325.
COBHAM, Rhonda. 1990. "Women in Jamaican Literature 1900-1950". In Davies and Fido. Out of the Kumbla. Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press: 195-222.
DAVIES, Carole B. 1990. "A Woman is a Nation". In Out of the Kumbla. Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press: 165-193.
---. 1994. Black Women, Writing and Identity. Migrations of the Subject. London: Routledge.
DAVIES, Carole B. and Elaine S. Fido. 1990. Out of the Kumbla. Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press.
ESPINET, Ramabai. 1992. "Caribbean Women's Poetry". In Walder Dennis, Cicely Palser Havely and Michael Rossington (eds.). Post-Colonial Literatures in English. Milton Keynes: The Open University. Offprints Collection: 158-164.
FIDO, Elaine S. (1986) 1990a. "Macho Attitudes and Derek Walcott". In Walder, Dennis (ed.). Literature in the Modern World, Critical Essays and Documents. New York: O.U.P.: 288-294.
---. (1986) 1990b. "Textures of Third World Reality in the Poetry of Four AfricanCaribbean Women". In 1990. Davies, Carole B. and Elaine S. Fido. Out of the Kumbla. Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press: 29-44.
GILROY, Beryl. 1976. Black Teacher. London: Cassell and Co.
GOODISON, Loma. 1989. Poems "For Rosa Parks", "Bedspread", "Heartease I" and "A Rosary of Your Names". In Markham, E.A. (ed.). Hinterland, Caribbean Poetry from the West Indies and Britain. Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe Books: 244-247.
---. April 1991. "Heartease". Interview recorded in Toronto. In 19 9 6. Birbalsingh, Frank (ed.). Frontiers of Caribbean Literature. London: Macmillan: 152-166.
HEANEY, Seamus (1989) 1991. "The Government of the Tongue". In New Writings in English, Calder, Angus. Milton Keynes: The Open University: 65-66.
JOHNSON, Amryl. 1992. Contextual information about Rosa Parks, on cassette A421, produced by the Open University. '
LAMMING, George. (1983) 1991. Introduction to In the Castle of My Skin. Michigan: University of Michigan Press.
LYOTARD, Jean François. (1979) 1992. Introduction to The Post-modern Condition. In Harrison, Charles and Paul Wood (eds.). Art in Theory 1900. 1990. Oxford: Blackwell: 998-1000.
MARKHAM, E. A. 1989. "Random Thoughts". In Markham, E. A. (ed.). Hinterland Caribbean Poetry from the West Indies and Britain. Newcastle upon Tyne'. Bloodaxe Books: 13-42.
NICHOLS, Grace. 1984. The Fat Black Woman's Poems. London: Virago.
---. 1988. "In Conversation with Maggie Butcher". Wasafiri 8, Spring: 18-20.
---. 1989. Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Woman. London: Virago Press.
---. (1983) 1990. I is a long-memoried woman. London: Karnak House.
---. 1991. Interviewed in Changing Voices, produced by the BBC for The Open University.
---. 1992. "The Battle with Language". In Walder, Dennis, Cicely Palser Havely, and Michael Rossington (eds.). Post-Colonial Literatures in English. The Open University. Offprints Collection: 147-151.
PERSRAM, Nalini. 1997. "In my father's house are many mansions. The nation and postcolonial desire". In Mirza, Heidi Safia (ed.). Black British Feminism. London: Routledge: 205-215.
RASSOOL, Naz. 1997. "Fractured or flexible identities? -life histories of "black" diasporic women in Britain". In Mirza, Heidi Safia (ed.). Black British Feminism. London: Routledge: 187-204.
SELVON, Sam. 1996. "The Open Society or its Enemies?" In Birbalsingh, Frank (ed.). Frontiers of Caribbean Literature. London: Macmillan: 54-67.
SENIOR, Olive. Poems from Talking of Trees. In Markham, E. A. (ed.). 1989. Hinterland, Caribbean Poetry from the West Indies and Britain. Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe Books: 217-228.
SPILLERS, Hortense. 1990. "Cross-Currents, Discontinuities: Black Women's Fiction". In Davies, Carole B. and Elaine S. Fido. Out of the Kumbla. Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press: 18.
SPIVAK, Gayatri C. 1993. "Can the Subaltern Speak?". In Williams Patrick D. and Laura Chrisman (eds.). Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory. HeMEL Hempstead (U.K.): Harvester Wheatsheaf: 66-111.
WALMSLEY, Anne. 1989. "A Far-Reaching Voice". In Markham, E. A. (ed.). Hinterland, Caribbean Poetry from the West Indies and Britain. Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe Books: 231-234.
WILLIAMS, Patrick, D. and Laura CHRISMAN (eds.). 1993. Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory. Hemel Hempstead (U.K.): Harvester Wheatsheaf: 66-111.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
