Abstract
This chapter offers a close reading of Olive Senior’s “Rejected Text for a Tourist Brochure,” where the poem’s lyrical I invites a lyrical you to visit the home island. By tracing a lineage from the exoticist gaze of colonialism to postmodern tourism advertisements, the poem highlights the latter’s destructive potential. The rejected text constructs an accusing and satirical image of a relentlessly exploitative identity that monetises the insular biosphere, its destruction and the nostalgia for it. By analysing the poetic (de)construction of post/colonial tropical island imaginaries and their consumption, I want to show how this poetic satire of tourist advertisements challenges, subverts and annihilates visualisations of the island paradise, thus reaching beyond the Caribbean and concerning the whole earth in the Anthropocene.
No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine;
—John Donne, “Meditation XVII”
[Y]ou watch the people below, […] each one alone in a crowd, / each one an island like you.
—Judith Ortiz Cofer, “Day in the Barrio”
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
In “The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory,” Derek Walcott states: “Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole” (2007, 195).
- 2.
The full citation reads: “Keeping company with the pigeons, you watch the people below, / flowing in currents on the street where you live, / each one alone in a crowd, / each one an island like you” (Ortiz Cofer 1995, ix, lines 21–24).
- 3.
This pedagogic introduction to the transcultural world of a Puerto Rican urban barrio in the United States for teenagers is closely linked to the world of Ortiz Cofer’s earlier novel The Line of the Sun (1989).
- 4.
An exemplary work of literary criticism that follows and perpetuates this insularist direction is Horst Brunner’s Die poetische Insel. He defines the poetic space of islands as chronotopic alterities in isolation, “counter-realms” to the “outside” and, thus, in an antithetical relationship to the “world.” Their spatial form is supposed to feature seclusion and limitation. Their temporal form is one of “duration” and he claims that insular time is perceived as “fixed” or “rotatory” and, therefore, is in opposition to the time that consciousness experiences “outside” (cf. Brunner 1967, 22–23).
- 5.
For insular homelands in translation, both Mediterranean and Caribbean, see Graziadei (2013).
- 6.
In his study of the interaction between population and economy under the effect of insularity, Dirk Godenau argues that islands in an archipelago suffer double insularity as the insularity of the archipelago vis-à-vis the continents repeats itself within the group of islands as the insularity of one island vis-à-vis the other (1992, 107).
- 7.
Not I, but “ahwa ‘water’ (Old Saxon and Old High German aha, […] Old English éa), with sense ‘of or pertaining to water’, ‘watery’, ‘watered’, and hence ‘watered place, meadow, island’” (“island, n.” 2018). As “a proto-Indo-European word for river,” ea is “thus representing water” (Royle 2007, 33), not man.
- 8.
I would kindly like to thank professor emerita Jane Bryce (2006) for answering my questions concerning her anthology.
- 9.
Mimi Sheller argues that the tropical island is “highly over-determined by the long history of literary and visual representations of the tropical island as Paradise” (Sheller 2003, 37) and that “[t]he palm would go on to become a key symbolic icon representing the entire Caribbean region” (2003, 40).
- 10.
See Chris Bongie (1998, 17–20) for a post/colonial condition that is “in line with Lyotard’s cautionary assertion regarding the modern and the postmodern—namely, that we must always read the latter as ‘being next to the former’” (17).
- 11.
I proposed the concept of nissopoiesis (Graziadei 2011, 163–181; 2017, 32–38), which refers to the construction of literary islands, by merging the concepts of nissology (cf. McCall 1994, 1–7; Baldacchino 2007), postcolonial nesology (Balasopoulos 2008, 9) and various concepts of geopoetics (White 1989, 1994; Maximin 2006; Italiano 2009).
- 12.
In Green Imperialism, Richard Grove argues that cultural preconceptions as well as political, medical and particularly economic reasons are responsible for the reconstruction of European-type landscapes in the island colonies even though the “widely held opinion that clearing and tilling the land brought beauty to the landscape as well as economic gain” is a “notion entirely contradictory, in practice, to the metaphor of the island as the location of an earthly paradise” (1995, 64–65).
- 13.
Within the Caribbean, solitaire can refer to Myadestes genibarbis, the rufous-throated solitaire with a decreasing population (see BirdLife International 2016), but also to the (probably) extinct Cuban Pines solitaire (Myadestes elisabeth retrusus) (cf. Hume and Walters 2012, 280–281). Solitaire refers furthermore to the extinct Rodrigues solitaire (Pezophas solitaria), which is closely related to the better known and likewise extinct Raphus cucullatus, the flightless dodo from Mauritius (cf. Cheke and Hume 2008, 162, 167). On the taxonomical “Confusion of the Dodo and Solitaire,” see Parish (2013, 133).
- 14.
“Marijuana is mentioned in the Rig-Vedas of India prior to 1000 BCE (as gaja, or ganja) as a favourite drink of the god Indra […]. [I]t was the syncretism of Christianity and Hinduism that gave Rastafarians the language and ritual context in which to make ganja sacred” (Benard 2007, 95).
- 15.
Hyper-capitalist in the sense Jeffrey Paris denominates “a period of transition between modernity and postmodernity,” “a period of geopolitical chaos” (2005, 173).
- 16.
The high-profile feud between Vybz Kartel (from Gaza) and Mavado (from Gully) was more than a sound clash between two artists from Kingston as their respective gangs where involved: “Mavado defiantly claims the space of the gully […] referencing and claiming a marginal place within the community and the national identity” (Stanley Niaah 2010, 74).
- 17.
Within the “antisystemic and acephalous” Rastafari movement (Chakravarty 2015, 154), the contrast between “[s]elf-sufficient agrarian lifestyles in the hillsides of Jamaica” and “the sheer urban squalor […] led to contrary caricatures of Rastafari within the popular consciousness: the revered Rasta elder meditating atop a mountain versus the slick dreadlocked hustler in the streets of Kingston” (2015, 155). One musical expression celebrating Rastafari counter-culture has received international renown: Reggae music. Yet, as “Reggae songs contain caustic social commentary” (Simpson 1985, 290), it was only due to “heritage tourism” that the symbolic capital of “popular artists (calypsonians and reggae composers)” and of “festival arts (especially Carnival, […] Reggae Sumfest)” rose and started to affect Jamaican politics and bureaucracy (Nettleford 1999, 1).
References
Bafaloukos, Theodorus. 1978. Rockers: It’s Dangerous. Jamaica: Rockers Film Company.
Balasopoulos, Antonis. 2008. Nesologies: Island Form and Postcolonial Geopoetics. Postcolonial Studies 11 (1): 9–26.
Baldacchino, Godfrey. 2007. Editorial: Introducing a World of Islands. In A World of Islands: An Island Studies Reader, ed. Godfrey Baldacchino, 1–29. Charlottetown: Island Studies Press.
Beer, Gillian. 1990. The Island and the Aeroplane: The Case of Virginia Woolf. In Nation and Narration, ed. Homi K. Bhabha, 265–290. New York: Routledge.
Benard, Akeia A. 2007. The Material Roots of Rastafarian Marijuana Symbolism. History and Anthropology 18 (1): 89–99.
BirdLife International. 2016. Myadestes genibarbis. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016. Accessed October 1, 2016. https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22708596/94167274.
Bongie, Chris. 1998. Islands and Exiles: The Creole Identities of Post/Colonial Literature. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Brathwaite, Kamau, and Nathaniel Mackey. 1999. Conversations with Nathaniel Mackey. Staten Island: We Press.
Brunner, Horst. 1967. Die poetische Insel: Inseln und Inselvorstellungen in der deutschen Literatur. Stuttgart: Metzler.
Bryce, Jane, ed. 2006. Caribbean Dispatches: Beyond the Tourist Dream. Oxford: Macmillan Caribbean.
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. 2009. The Climate of History: Four Theses. Critical Inquiry 35 (2): 197–222.
———. 2012. Postcolonial Studies and the Challenge of Climate Change. New Literary History 43 (1): 1–18.
Chakravarty, K. Gandhar. 2015. Rastafari Revisited. A Four-Point Orthodox-Secular Typology. Journal of the American Academy of Religion 83 (1): 151–180.
Chamoiseau, Patrick. 1997. Écrire en pays dominé. Paris: Gallimard.
Cheke, Anthony, and Julian Hume. 2008. Lost Land of the Dodo. London: T & AD Poyser.
DeLoughrey, Elizabeth M. 2007. Routes and Roots: Navigating Caribbean and Pacific Island Literatures. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press.
Donne, John. 1839. Meditation XVII. In The Works of John Donne, ed. Henry Alford, 574–575. London: Parker.
Ette, Ottmar. 2005. Von Inseln, Grenzen und Vektoren. Versuch über die fraktale Inselwelt der Karibik. In Grenzen der Macht—Macht der Grenzen. Lateinamerika im globalen Kontext, ed. Marianne Braig, Ottmar Ette, Dieter Ingenschay, and Günther Maihold, 135–180. Frankfurt am Main: Vervuert Verlag.
Glissant, Édouard. 1997. Traité du tout-monde. Paris: Gallimard.
———. 2009. Philosophie de la relation: Poésie en étendue. Paris: Gallimard.
Godenau, Dirk. 1992. Die Interaktion zwischen Bevölkerung und Wirtschaft unter Bedingungen von Insularität. Der Fall der Kanarischen Inseln nach 1940. Köln: Hänsel-Hohenhausen.
Goldman, Dara E. 2008. Out of Bounds: Islands and the Demarcation of Identity in the Hispanic Caribbean. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press.
Graziadei, Daniel. 2011. Geopoetics of the Island. Strategies Against Iconic Isolation. In Tra paesaggio e geopoetica. Studi di geo-grafia, ed. Marco Mastronunzio and Federico Italiano, 163–182. Milano: Unicopli.
———. 2013. Islands in Translation. Some Observations on Insular Homelands in Translation from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean. Civilità del Mediterraneo 23–24 (Summer–Winter): 191–209.
———. 2017. Insel(n) im Archipel. Zur Verwendung einer Raumfigur in den zeitgenössischen anglo-, franko- und hispanophonen Literaturen der Karibik. Paderborn: Fink.
Grove, Richard H. 1995. Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600–1860. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hau‘ofa, Epeli. 1998. The Ocean in Us. The Contemporary Pacific 10 (2): 392–410.
Huggan, Graham, and Helen Tiffin. 2010. Postcolonial Ecocriticism. Literature, Animals, Environment. London and New York: Routledge.
Hume, Julian P., and Michael Walters. 2012. Extinct Birds. London: T & AD Poyser.
“identity, n.” June 2018. OED Online. Oxford University Press. Accessed July 19, 2018. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/91004?
“identity, n.” September 2019. Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster Incorporated. Accessed September 13, 2019. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/identity.
“island, n.” September 2018. OED Online. Oxford University Press. Accessed October 19, 2018. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/99986.
Italiano, Federico. 2009. Tra miele e pietra: Aspetti di geopoetica in Montale e Celan. Milano: Mimesis.
Italiano, Federico, and Michael Rössner, eds. 2012. Translatio/n. Narration, Media and the Staging of Differences. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.
Maximin, Daniel. 2006. Les fruits du cyclone: Une géopoétique de la Caraïbe. Paris: Éd. du Seuil.
McCall, Grant. 1994. Nissology: A Proposal for Consideration. Journal of the Pacific Society 17 (2–3): 1–14.
McCusker, Maeve, and Anthony Soares, eds. 2011. Islanded Identities: Constructions of Postcolonial Cultural Insularity. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Nettleford, Rex. 1999. Keynote Address: The Caribbean Artist’s Presence and Education for the Third Millennium. Caribbean Quarterly 45 (2/3): 1–9.
Stanley Niaah, Sonjah. 2010. DanceHall: From Slave Ship to Ghetto. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press.
Nixon, Rob. 2011. Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. London: Harvard University Press.
Ortiz Cofer, Judith. 1989. The Line of the Sun: A Novel. Athens: University of Georgia Press.
———. 1995. An Island Like You: Stories of the Barrio. Houston: Puffin Books.
Paris, Jeffrey. 2005. Rethinking the End of Modernity: Empire, Hyper-Capitalism, and Cyberpunk Dystopias. Social Philosophy Today 21: 173–189.
Parish, Joylon C. 2013. The Dodo and the Solitaire: A Natural History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Royle, Stephen A. 2007. Definitions and Typologies. In A World of Islands: An Island Studies Reader, ed. Godfrey Baldacchino, 33–52. Charlottetown: Island Studies.
Said, Edward W. (1978) 2003. Orientalism. 25th anniversary ed. with a new preface by the author. New York: Vintage Books.
Senior, Olive. 2000–2001. Rejected Text for a Tourist Brochure. Catch Afire: New Jamaican Writing. Obsidian III: Literature in the African Diaspora 2 (2): 118–119.
———. 2005. over the roofs of the world. Toronto: Insomniac Press.
———. 2006. Rejected Text for a Tourist Brochure. In Caribbean Dispatches. Beyond the Tourist Dream, ed. Jane Bryce, 2–3. Oxford: Macmillan Caribbean.
———. 2015. The Author. Olive Senior (website). Accessed May 4, 2019. http://www.olivesenior.com/author/index.html.
Sheller, Mimi. 2003. Consuming the Caribbean: From Arawaks to Zombies. London: Routledge.
Simpson, George Eaton. 1985. Religion and Justice: Some Reflections on the Rastafari Movement. Phylon 46 (4): 286–291.
Small, Ernest. 2012. Top 100 Exotic Food Plants. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
Smith, Michael Garfield. 1997. Jamaica. In A Man Divided: Michael Garfield Smith: Jamaican Poet and Anthropologist 1921–1993, ed. Douglas G. Hall, 9–10. Kingston, Jamaica: Press University of the West Indies.
Viala, Fabienne. 2014. The Post-Columbus Syndrome: Identities, Cultural Nationalism, and Commemorations in the Caribbean. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Walcott, Derek. 2007. The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory. In Nobel Lectures: From the Literature Laureates 1986 to 2006, 191–208. New York: The New Press.
White, Kenneth. 1989. What Is Geopoetics? Scottish Centre for Geopoetics (website). Accessed October 18, 2018. http://www.geopoetics.org.uk/what-is-geopoetics/kenneth-white.
———. 1994. Le plateau de l’albatros: Introduction à la géopoétique. Paris: Grasset.
Whitman, Walt. 2004. Song of Myself: The Text from the First Edition of Leaves of Grass (1855). In The Complete Poems, ed. Francis Murphy, 675–740. London: Penguin.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Graziadei, D. (2019). “Come see my land”: Watching the Tropical Island Paradise Die in Poetry. In: Riquet, J., Heusser, M. (eds) Imaging Identity. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21774-7_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21774-7_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-21773-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-21774-7
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)