Poetry. African American Studies. Kamau Brathwaite was born in Barbados in 1930, and found a rootedness in Africa that would sharpen his sense of "wholeness" and shape his awareness. His published works have surged his international standing, but since MIDDLEPASSAGES (1992, also available from SPD), the literary world has seemingly been expecting another major volume of poetry from him. WORDS NEED LOVE TOO represents that long awaited collection, and is, perhaps, Brathwaite's most concentrated effort at fashioning a new literary tradition out of the fragmented pieces/rhythms/nation languages that form the New World. The poems in this volume are "dreamstories." It is a harvest of dreams of a new word, cleansed in ancestral blood, loved without reservation by those born into it and with it, so that through it, they can shape a new reality, a new destiny. No other poet, living or dead, makes us participants in, and co-celebrants of, the liturgy of the word like Brathwaite.

Author City: NEW YORK, NY USA

Since the early 1950s, Kamau Brathwaite has been one of the leading producers of intellectual discourse on Caribbean literature and culture. With poetic works such as the Arrivants (1973), a chronicle of the triangular slave trade, his place as a major contemporary poet and original literary voice of the Caribbean is well-established. The richness of Professor Brathwaite's verse is paralleled by the depth of his scholarly essays in literary criticism, cultural theory, and history. In recognition of his many literary achievements, Professor Brathwaite has been awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the Casa de las Américas Premio, the Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Fulbright Fellowship. Among his books are Ancestors, Magical Realism, Golokwati, WORDS NEED LOVE TOO, Ark: A 9/11 Continuation Poem, The Development of Creole Society in Jamaica 1770-1820, CONVERSATIONS WITH NATHANIEL MACKEY, Born to Slow Horses, and TRENCH TOWN ROCK.