African Diasporic Literature

Kwame Dawes has been committed to redressing a significant failing of much of the work done on Caribbean poetry in recent years. With a few notable exceptions, much of the critical work on Caribbean poets has focused on Derek Walcott, Kamau Brathwaite, Lorna Goodison and perhaps, Martin Carter. 

The fact is that Caribbean poets have generated a significant body of interesting work that is worthy of critical attention. Kwame Dawes' introductions to Caribbean poetry allow him to expose others to the work of poets that have been giving voice to the landscape language and personalities of the Caribbean for decades. His books Talk Yuh Talk: Interviews with CaribbeanPoets and Wheel and Come Again: An Anthology of Reggae Poems, along with his numerous essays and reviews on the work of Caribbean poets, form the basis of his lectures and seminars on Caribbean poetry.

In these lectures he traces the aesthetic and formal concerns of the poets from the region and does so by closely examining the poetry of some of the regions most important poets.