“Taak prappa”

David Dabydeen’s collection of poems Slave Song (1984) represents the Guyanese poet’s attempt to compensate for the silence surrounding slavery and the absence of a significant body of poetry in Creole. In a series of 14 poems written in Guyanese Creole and accompanied by illustrations dating from t...

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Main Author: Kathie Birat
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Centre de Recherche "Texte et Critique de Texte" 2018-11-01
Series:Sillages Critiques
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/sillagescritiques/7745
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author Kathie Birat
author_facet Kathie Birat
author_sort Kathie Birat
collection DOAJ
description David Dabydeen’s collection of poems Slave Song (1984) represents the Guyanese poet’s attempt to compensate for the silence surrounding slavery and the absence of a significant body of poetry in Creole. In a series of 14 poems written in Guyanese Creole and accompanied by illustrations dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as well as explanatory notes and translations in standard English, the poet evokes the lives of plantation slaves and modern-day peasants through forms that both imitate folk poetry and evoke European genres like the pastoral and the elegy. Through an analysis of this intertwining of local and European forms and of the use of Creole in Slave Song, this article examines the collection as an attempt on the part of the poet both to generate presence and to recognize the impossibility of filling the gaps left by a painful past.
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institution Kabale University
issn 1272-3819
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language English
publishDate 2018-11-01
publisher Centre de Recherche "Texte et Critique de Texte"
record_format Article
series Sillages Critiques
spelling doaj-art-3b2d97f387644099a6a7e757b2e6e1722025-01-30T13:47:04ZengCentre de Recherche "Texte et Critique de Texte"Sillages Critiques1272-38191969-63022018-11-012510.4000/sillagescritiques.7745“Taak prappa”Kathie BiratDavid Dabydeen’s collection of poems Slave Song (1984) represents the Guyanese poet’s attempt to compensate for the silence surrounding slavery and the absence of a significant body of poetry in Creole. In a series of 14 poems written in Guyanese Creole and accompanied by illustrations dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as well as explanatory notes and translations in standard English, the poet evokes the lives of plantation slaves and modern-day peasants through forms that both imitate folk poetry and evoke European genres like the pastoral and the elegy. Through an analysis of this intertwining of local and European forms and of the use of Creole in Slave Song, this article examines the collection as an attempt on the part of the poet both to generate presence and to recognize the impossibility of filling the gaps left by a painful past.https://journals.openedition.org/sillagescritiques/7745voicepresenceabsenceoralityDavid DabydeenAnglophone Caribbean poetry
spellingShingle Kathie Birat
“Taak prappa”
Sillages Critiques
voice
presence
absence
orality
David Dabydeen
Anglophone Caribbean poetry
title “Taak prappa”
title_full “Taak prappa”
title_fullStr “Taak prappa”
title_full_unstemmed “Taak prappa”
title_short “Taak prappa”
title_sort taak prappa
topic voice
presence
absence
orality
David Dabydeen
Anglophone Caribbean poetry
url https://journals.openedition.org/sillagescritiques/7745
work_keys_str_mv AT kathiebirat taakprappa