BOOK PREVIEW: Afro-Caribbean Poetry in English: Cultural Traditions 1970s-2000s. (2015)

13 This book presents the phenomenon of Afro-Caribbean poetry in English from Jamaican classic dub poetry of the 1970s to (Black) British post-dub verse of the 2000s. It showcases the literary continuum, as represented by Jamaican, Jamaican-British, and ultimately (Black) British writers – Mutabaruka, Michael Smith, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Jean Binta Breeze, Benjamin Zephaniah, and Patience Agbabi, respectively. The work of these authors represents a gradual shift from the emphasis on ethics to the preponderance of aesthetics that include social concerns typical of classic dub poetry.

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Afro-Caribbean Poetry in English Cultural Traditions (1970s-2000s)

Bartosz Wójcik · Afro-Caribbean Poetry in English

Bartosz Wójcik is a literary critic, translator and cultural manager. He holds a PhD in literature, and specialises in the cultures of the Caribbean.

Bartosz Wójcik

Transatlantic Studies in British and North American Culture Edited by Marek Wilczyński

TRANSATLANTIC STUDIES IN BRITISH AND NORTH AMERICAN CULTURE Edited by Marek WilczyĔski

VOLUME 13

Bartosz Wójcik

Afro-Caribbean Poetry in English Cultural Traditions (1970s-2000s)

Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

ISSN 2364-2882 ISBN!978-3-631-64544-4!(Print) E-ISBN 978-3-653-03699-2 (E-Book) DOI 10.3726/978-3-653-03699-2 © Peter Lang GmbH Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften Frankfurt am Main 2015 All rights reserved. Peter Lang Edition is an Imprint of Peter Lang GmbH. Peter Lang – Frankfurt am Main · Bern · Bruxelles · New York · Oxford · Warszawa · Wien All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems. This publication has been peer reviewed. www.peterlang.com

*GDĔVN Transatlantic Studies in British and North American Culture Edited by Marek WilczyĔski The interdisciplinary series “*GDĔVNTransatlantic Studies in British and North American Culture” brings together literary and cultural studies concerning literatures and cultures of the English-speaking world, particularly those of Great Britain, Ireland, the United States, and Canada. The range of topics to be addressed includes literature, theater, film, and art, considered in various twenty-first-century theoretical perspectives, such as, for example (but not exclusively), New Historicism and canon formation, cognitive narratology, gender and queer studies, performance studies, memory and trauma studies, and New Art History. The editors are leaving a broad margin for the innovative and the unpredictable, hoping to attract authors whose approaches will point to new directions of research as regards both thematic areas and methods. Comparative Polish-Anglo-American proposals will be considered, too. Vol.

1

MiroVáDZD0RGU]HZVND%\URQDQGWKH%DURTXH2013.

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2

Andrzej Ceynowa / 0DUHN :LOF]\ĔVNL HGV  American Experience – The Experience of America. 2013.

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3

Marta Koval: “We search the Past for Our Own Lost Selves.” Representations of Historical Experience in Recent American Fiction. 2013.

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4

Tomasz Basiuk: Exposures. American Gay Men´s Life Writing since Stonewall. 2013.

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5

Klara Naszkowska: The Living Mirror. The Representation of Doubling Identities in the British and Polish Women’s Literature (1846–1938). 2014.

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6

Urszula Elias / Agnieszka Sienkiewicz-Charlish (eds.): Crime Scenes. Modern Crime Fiction in an International Context. 2014.

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7

Justyna Kociatkiewicz / Laura Suchostawska/Dominika Ferens (eds.): Eating America. Crisis, Sustenance, Sustainability. 2014.

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8

$JQLHV]ND3DQWXFKRZLF]6áDZRPLU0DVáRĔHGV): Affinities. Essays in Honour of ProfesVRU7DGHXV]5DFKZDá

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9

Janusz Semrau / Marek WilczyĔski (eds.): Image in Modern(ist) Verse. 2015. Transatlantic Studies in British and North American Culture (GLWHGE\0DUHN:LOF]\ĔVNL

Vol.

10

0DáJRU]DWD*U]HJRU]HZVND / Jean Ward / Mark Burrows (eds.): Breaking the Silence. Poetry and the Kenotic Word. 2015.

Vol.

11

Dominika Oramus: Charles Darwin’s Looking Glass. The Theory of Evolution and the Life of its Author in Contemporary British Fiction and Non-Fiction. 2015.

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12

0LáRV] :RMW\QD: The Ordinary and the Short Story. Short Fiction of T.F. Powys and V.S. Pritchett. 2015.

Vol.

13

Bartosz Wójcik: Afro-Caribbean Poetry in English. Cultural Traditions (1970s-2000s). 2015.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

7

Introduction

9

Chapter 1: Survival Mutabaruka Biography Neocolonialism Christianity Eurocentric Education Rastafarianism Africanism – Afrocentrism – Poetry of Ancestry The Poet and His Poetry Michael Smith Biography Neocolonialism Christianity Eurocentric Education Rastafarianism Africanism – Jamaicanism – Poetry of Natality The Poet and His Poetry Chapter 2: Uprising Linton Kwesi Johnson Biography Voices of the Living and the Dead (1974) Dread Beat An’ Blood (1975) Inglan is a Bitch (1980) Tings An’ Times (1991) Mi Revalueshanary Fren: Selected Poems (2002): New Word Hawdah (nineties verse) Jean Binta Breeze Biography

47 49 56 62 68 74 86 95 97 101 105 110 112 122

129 132 136 149 161 170 182

6

Table of Contents

Early 1980s – the era of Answers (1983) Riddym Ravings and Other Poems (1988) Spring Cleaning (1992) On the Edge of an Island (1997) The Arrival of Brighteye (2000) The Fifth Figure (2006) Third World Girl (2011) Chapter 3: Confrontation Benjamin Zephaniah Biography Pen Rhythm (1980) The Dread Affair (1985) Inna Liverpool (1992) City Psalms (1992) Propa Propaganda (1996) Too Black, Too Strong (2001) Patience Agbabi Biography R.A.W. (1995) Transformatrix (2000) Bloodshot Monochrome (2008)

185 187 203 216 222 230 236

241 244 249 254 257 263 268 277 280 296 310

Conclusion

329

Bibliography

335

Acknowledgements The present study is based on my doctoral dissertation that I defended in 2013. The thesis was supervised by Professor Aleksandra Kędzierska (Maria Curie Skłodowska University in Lublin). At this juncture, I would like to express my gratitude to both external reviewers – Professor Jerzy Jarniewicz (University of Łódź) and Professor David Malcolm (University of Gdańsk), whose critique and criticism alike have indeed been conducive to the book’s gestation. I am also honoured that my book proposal has been accepted by Professor Marek Wilczyński (University of Gdańsk) for the “Transatlantic Studies in British and North American Culture” series of which he is the General Editor. The monograph that I have authored is at heart a collective work. As such, it owes its existence to the intellectual and emotional hospitality of established researchers that I have been fortunate enough to meet along the way and stay in touch ever since. In particular, I am grateful to Professor Kamau Brathwaite for his insightful online and offline comments, for encouraging “actiVity” in the course of my studies and for “keepin w/the Polish connXion”. Similarly, I have benefited from numerous and fruitful exchanges with Dr Tomasz Kitliński, Dr Annika McPherson, Dr Philip Nanton and Dr Stefan Walcott, whom I cannot thank enough. And, had it not been for the acumen of singjay and toppa top selecta Andrzej Kępski, who a decade ago introduced me to the creative output of Linton Kwesi Johnson, I might still remain shamefully indifferent to the cultural diversity of the Caribbean. Laaarge up, Natty B! The book is much indebted to Dr Sarah Lawson (York St John University, UK), whose close reading and copious suggestions have qualitatively contributed to the monograph’s present incarnation. Although I have never been officially enrolled in any of the university courses taught by Sarah, I do feel to have been her student. Obviously, all textual mistakes, analytical omissions and factual blunders are my own responsibility. This thank-you note would not be complete without a heartfelt shout-out to outernational friends and colleagues, especially to Dr Katarína Nemoková, Dr Gregory Jason Bell (I consider Tomáš Baťa University in Zlin to be my adoptive alma mater), Dr David Bousquet, Dr Monika Szuba as well as to members of Heidelberg University’s Transkulturelle Studien. I remain obliged to Kamila Bartuzi-Monaghan, whose typesetting skills have made my manuscript reader-friendly. As a self-funded researcher, I often relied on the unceasing assistance of my family, who have always risen to the challenge, providing me among others with much-needed moral support. Specifically, I salute my parents and grandmother, whose understanding of my professional choices has frequently alleviated my writerly agitation. Still, and this is no mere platitude or convention, both the publication and the research that underpins it would not have been possible without the tightrope-walking abilities (academic life, as many of you know, rests on a most precarious balance) of Małgorzata Paprota, my long-time partner, fellow traveller, collaborator and the fulcrum of my scholarly and otherwise endeavours.