A Review of Ancestors

Brathwaite’s risky reinvention of his important trilogy—Mother Poem (1977), Sun Poem (1982) and X/Self (1987)—has much to offer old and new readers alike. The celebrated Barbadian poet has reworked the text in his own hieroglyphic “Sycorax video style” type. His dispossessed speakers habitually declare themselves in free verse dialect. Yet there is little of the parochial about the voices of those who “nevva get no pension from de people.” Here, the Caribbean’s past, present and future are encountered with a sense of melancholy, of inevitability and finally of hope. “Lookin back to the land,” he reminds us, “you wd see that only the tallest trees/are still standin.” The typography is sometimes puzzling; and, though ruminative, Brathwaite is not a metaphysician. His most startling moments are concrete: they evoke a solid appreciation of how and why West Indians of the 20th century expressed themselves as they did, and still do.

This review first appeared in Caribbean Beat Magazine Issue 56, July/August 2002, at https://www.caribbean-beat.com/issue-56/caribbean-book-reviews#ixzz5VYqM...