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Teaching Caribbean Poetry

An Essential Resource Book for Teachers

Edited by Beverley Bryan, Morag Styles

To Be Published October 9th 2013 by Routledge – 152 pages

Series: National Association for the Teaching of English (NATE)

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    978-0-415-64048-0
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Description

Teaching Caribbean Poetry will inform and inspire readers with a love for, and understanding of, the dynamic world of Caribbean poetry. This unique volume sets out to enable secondary English teachers and their students to engage with a wide range of poetry, past and present; to understand how histories of the Caribbean underpin the poetry and relate to its interpretation; and to explore how Caribbean poetry connects with environmental issues.

Written by literary experts with extensive classroom experience, this lively and accessible book is immersed in classroom practice, and examines:

  • popular aspects of Caribbean poetry, such as performance poetry
  • different forms of dialect (nation language) and Creole usage
  • the relationship between music and poetry
  • new voices, as well as well-known and distinguished poets, including John Agard (winner of Queen’s Medal for Poetry, 2013), Kamau Brathwaite, Derek Walcott, Olive Senior and Lorna Goodison
  • the crucial themes within Caribbean poetry such as inequality, injustice, racism, ‘othering’, hybridity, diaspora and migration
  • the place of Caribbean poetry on the GCSE / CSEC and CAPE syllabi, covering appropriate themes, poetic forms and poets for exam purposes.

Throughout this absorbing book, the authors aim to combat the widespread ‘fear’ of teaching poetry, enabling teachers to teach it with confidence and enthusiasm and helping students to experience the rewards of listening to, reading, interpreting, performing and writing Caribbean poetry.

Contents

Preface Mervyn Morris Introduction: Why Caribbean poetry? Beverley Bryan & Morag Styles 1. Poetry, Place and Environment: the scope of Caribbean poetry David Whitley 2. The Language of Caribbean poetry Aisha Spencer 3. Poetry and Caribbean Music Aisha Spencer with Sharon Phillip 4. Poetry of Oppression, Resistance and Liberation Georgie Horrell 5. Understanding, Approaching and Teaching Derek Walcott in Two Settings Velma Pollard & David Whitley 6. The Diaspora Consciousness: identity and exile in Caribbean British poetry Morag Styles & Beverley Bryan 7. Contemporary Caribbean Poetry Lorna Down 8. Teachers’ Voices Beverley Bryan with Georgie Horrell & Sandra Robinson 9. Teaching Caribbean Poetry Beverley Bryan with Morag Styles Appendix: Appendix: Further reading for Poetry of Oppression, Resistance and Liberation Georgie Horrell

Author Bio

Beverley Bryan is Professor of Language Education at the University of the West Indies’ Mona School of Education, Jamaica, and a past Head of Department and Director of the School.

Morag Styles is Professor of Children’s Poetry at the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Education, and a Fellow of Homerton College, University of Cambridge, UK.

Name: Teaching Caribbean Poetry: An Essential Resource Book for Teachers (Paperback) – Routledge 
Description: Edited by Beverley Bryan, Morag Styles. Teaching Caribbean Poetry will inform and inspire readers with a love for, and understanding of, the dynamic world of Caribbean poetry. This unique volume sets out to enable secondary English teachers and their students to engage with a wide range of...
Categories: Secondary Education, English