Williams, Emily Allen

About the author: Emily Allen Williams is a Professor of English at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. Williams was Scholar-in-Residence at New York University under the auspices of the Faculty Resource network during the summer of 1999. She holds a D

Poetic Negotiation of Identity in the Works of Brathwaite, Harris, Senior and DabydeenTropical Paradise Lost and Regained

1999 0-7734-7931-7
This volume illuminates the heightened critical assessment of Anglophone Caribbean poetry in the late 20th century. Williams makes a substantial contribution to a canon of literary criticism through her critical examination of selected poetry of Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Claire Harris, Olive Senior, and David Dabydeen. In her analysis she highlights the power of language as it classifies, divides, informs, and synthesizes the lives of Caribbean peoples throughout the Caribbean basin region. While placing emphasis on the poets’ concerns with exile, displacement, and colonial cultural and political domination, it places primary emphasis on their movement beyond poetic forms of mere protest. Using the protest form, each poet appropriates a larger vision which encompasses prophecy for present and future gains based upon a meaningful connection to their African and Indian (cultural) primacy.