[Brathwaite's] poems are about typical West Indian experiences of life in [the West Indies, England, America, and Ghana], and they are written in a free slangy language similar to that of blues songs. Attitudes change, children mock their father's Uncle Tom deference, negroes live up to the white conception of them, 'black skin red eyes broad back big you know what'. The total effect is impressive. The poems [in Rights of Passage] have a sense of the present, a feeling for the past, above all an awareness of a world changing, sometimes chaotically. This—I mean no disrespect to Mr. Brathwaite—is Commonwealth poetry. (p. 479)
Julian Symons, in New Statesman (© 1967 The Statesman & Nation Publishing Co. Ltd.), April 7, 1967.
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Read the rest of this Criticism with our Brathwaite, Edward 1930–: Critical Essay by Julian Symons Access Pass.
