Trench Town Rock

by Edward Kamau Brathwaite

Poetry. African American Studies. Caribbean Studies. "Typeset in Brathwaite's trademark Sycorax video-print style, TRENCH TOWN ROCK is a harrowing account of violence in modern-day Jamaica. TRENCH TOWN ROCK, Kamau Brathwaite's long documentarian song, affords insistent 'nansic spin a splay of clips, massed facts and faces, rare synaesthetic call and cry rolled into brash typographic distraint." Nathaniel Mackey"

Genres: Poetry, Read For School, School

79 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1994

About the author

Edward Kamau Brathwaite is widely considered one of the major voices in the Caribbean literary canon. A professor of Comparative Literature at New York University, Brathwaite is the 2006 International Winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize, for his volume of poetry Born to Slow Horses.

Brathwaite held a Ph.D. from the University of Sussex (1968) and was the co-founder of the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM). He received both the Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships in 1983, and was a winner of the 1994 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the Bussa Award, the Casa de las Américas Prize for poetry, and the 1999 Charity Randall Citation for Performance and Written Poetry from the International Poetry Forum.

Brathwaite is noted for his studies of Black cultural life both in Africa and throughout the African diasporas of the world in works such as Folk Culture of the Slaves in Jamaica (1970); The Development of Creole Society in Jamaica, 1770 - 1820 (1971); Contradictory Omens (1974); Afternoon of the Status Crow (1982); and History of the Voice (1984), the publication of which established him as the authority of note on nation language.

Reviews

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

The verse in this book is so visceral it strangles you. The detail is gritty and like a newspaper pop-up book, it punches you in the face.

[Travis Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

The last time a book read so clearly to me was when I read As I Lay Dying so this one is definitely an incredible book. When it comes to finding out what exactly creative nonfiction is, this is the book I would recommend. It’s so beautiful and heartbreaking and listening to bob marley after reading this makes me feel so weird and sad and hopeful inside.

[in8 · Rating 2 out of 5]

my feelings skewd cuz thawt th rendition of sycorax suckd: http://www.5cense.com/16/460.htm

[E · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars, to be more specific