Beyond Tourism: Alternative Futures in Contemporary Caribbean Poetry

Abstract

This essay analyses contemporary Anglophone Caribbean poetry which, in contrast to mainstream representations mostly tailored for a western readership, advances an optimistic, yet non-idealised and incisive, perspective on the region. These poetics resist the pervasiveness of the colonial construction of Caribbean island spaces as tourist havens, addressing the profound impact and overpowering influence of tourism in the region. This essay focuses on two island-based writers, Bahamian poet Sonia Farmer and Saint Lucian poet Kendel Hippolyte, whose poetry highlights and condemns the continuities between colonialism and the tourist industry, as well as the social and psychological effects of the region’s economic subjugation and overall neo-colonial status. Their poetry does not only debunk the myths of island isolation and statism, but also advances new visions for the region which call for the recognition of grassroots alternatives to the present milieu.