Two Decades of
Caribbean Writing

Poetry

Two Poems from Girl Before Country

Blind Date My Black and my Caribbean walk into a room and the air is still My Black breaks the silence first and says: "Wassup, where you…

Fiction

Tasha’s Cou-Cou, An Excerpt from CircleSquare

A spot of indigestion, anyone? Illustration Copyright © 2023 by Akaila Armstrong. DAVID PLACED two small scoops of cou-cou on Tasha’s plate…

Past Issues

No. 3: Masters of the Hypa Verse

Published: Jul/Aug 2003 Theme: Kamau, Lil Rick and the nation-language evolution Cover: Hypa collage—poet Kamau Brathwaite and calypsonian…

Blog

What’s in a number? How It Feels to Turn Twenty Again

Artist Joshua Clarke's short video on the creation of the cover illustration for Cyndi Celeste's Girl Before Country. You say it's your…

Poetry

Three Poems

The True, True Mudda Sally. Illustration Copyright © 2023 by Akaila Armstrong. Love in the Time of Circular Chants Chant A Psalm A Day……

Ghosts of Petticoats (A Dramatic Monologue)

IN 1816 Nanny Grigg and a group of other women, alongside Bussa in Barbados, took up arms to fight for their freedom. On 14-16 April, 1816,…

News

The 2023 IndyList

WELCOME to the 2023 ArtsEtc Independence Reading List. This is the twelfth edition (already!) of our annual list of Barbadian literature to…

From the Archives: Word (on teaching a forty-year-old man to read)

He trusted me to break the word, crack each segment open until the mystery expired. Not so this morning. He stared bewildered at the board,…

Last Saturday Night

Chorus Saturday night, it was Saturday night Saturday night, last Saturday night VS 1 Down through de alley playing piece o’ romey Risking…

A Review of Shabine and Other Stories

HAZEL SIMMONS-MCDONALD is a Saint Lucian who has lived and worked in Barbados for over thirty years. She is Professor Emerita of Applied…

A Review of Leaving Atlantis–See PP2-3 of Contents for More

Andrea Wells