Carter and Roach: Their Role in the Region
Name: Gabrielle Le Gendre
ID Number: 811000149
LITS 2507: Introduction to West Indian Poetry (B): Selected West Indian Poets
Essay Title: The examination of the ways in which Eric Roach and Martin Carter demonstrate their awareness of the importance of poetry to the region, and their own role in shaping it to the region’s needs.
Submission Date: Tuesday 26th March, 2013.
Question: “The poets studied on the course demonstrate in and through their poetry their awareness of the importance of poetry to the region and their own role in shaping it to the region 's needs.” By close reference to at least three poems for each poet, compare how two of the poets studied demonstrate this awareness. In the Caribbean, a need for awareness of identity and ‘self’ has always been a topic of concern for creatives due to the Caribbean’s extensive colonial past. This encouraged the creative persons in society to embrace a personal mission: of assisting the people in both appreciating the past and the present, as well as undergoing struggle in the fulfillment of a dream. The adoption of such a mission shows the poets’ understanding of the importance of their poetry, giving them a duty to the people. Two such poets who were instrumental in this mission were Eric Roach and Martin Carter; whose poetic work and struggle allowed the people of Trinidad and Guyana, respectively, as well as the entire Caribbean become aware of the situations in the region. Eric Roach, a poet whose mission focused around bringing awareness to the Caribbean people about the Caribbean, was one of the first poets to accept this challenge. Due to the Eurocentric nature of the poems coming out of the Caribbean in the early 1900’s, Roach seemed to deem it his duty to give the people a vision; a vision of what the Caribbean was and what it is. In Roach’s materializing of this mission, he first had to internally accept the Caribbean for what it was and what it had been through to take a
ID Number: 811000149
LITS 2507: Introduction to West Indian Poetry (B): Selected West Indian Poets
Essay Title: The examination of the ways in which Eric Roach and Martin Carter demonstrate their awareness of the importance of poetry to the region, and their own role in shaping it to the region’s needs.
Submission Date: Tuesday 26th March, 2013.
Question: “The poets studied on the course demonstrate in and through their poetry their awareness of the importance of poetry to the region and their own role in shaping it to the region 's needs.” By close reference to at least three poems for each poet, compare how two of the poets studied demonstrate this awareness. In the Caribbean, a need for awareness of identity and ‘self’ has always been a topic of concern for creatives due to the Caribbean’s extensive colonial past. This encouraged the creative persons in society to embrace a personal mission: of assisting the people in both appreciating the past and the present, as well as undergoing struggle in the fulfillment of a dream. The adoption of such a mission shows the poets’ understanding of the importance of their poetry, giving them a duty to the people. Two such poets who were instrumental in this mission were Eric Roach and Martin Carter; whose poetic work and struggle allowed the people of Trinidad and Guyana, respectively, as well as the entire Caribbean become aware of the situations in the region. Eric Roach, a poet whose mission focused around bringing awareness to the Caribbean people about the Caribbean, was one of the first poets to accept this challenge. Due to the Eurocentric nature of the poems coming out of the Caribbean in the early 1900’s, Roach seemed to deem it his duty to give the people a vision; a vision of what the Caribbean was and what it is. In Roach’s materializing of this mission, he first had to internally accept the Caribbean for what it was and what it had been through to take a
Cited: * Breiner, Laurence. An Introduction to West Indian Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Print. * Brown, Lloyd. “Martin Wylde Carter”. Fifty Caribbean Writers: A Bio-Bibliographic Critical Sourcebook. Daryl Cumber Dance. New York: Greenwood Press, 1986. pg 109. Print. * Brown, Stewart. The Truth of Craft. caribbeanreviewofbooks.com, The Caribbean Review of Books. February 2006. Web. March 24th 2013. * Carter, Martin. University of Hunger: Collected Poems and Selected Prose. Ed. Gemma Robinson. Bloodaxe, 2006. Print. * Philp, Geoffrey. “E.M. Roach, The Flowering Rock: Collected Poems 1938-1974”. The Caribbean Writer. Peepaaltreepress.com. Web. March 18th 2013. * Roach, Eric. The Flowering Rock: Collected poems 1938-1974. Ed. Kenneth Ramchand. Peepal Tree Press Ltd,1992. Print. * White, Landeg. “E.M. Roach, The Flowering Rock: Collected Poems 1938-1974”. The Caribbean Writer. Peepaaltreepress.com. Web. March 23rd 2013.