[Rights of Passage] is the first part of a poem titled "Masks."… "Masks" would appear to be an epic-length work of the sort established by Whitman in "Song of Myself," and continued by Pound and Williams in "The Cantos" and "Paterson" respectively. But perhaps "established" isn't the right word, for the form remains vague and personal, even if the general direction of such poems seems to be the discovery of self and national identity by means of catalogues derived from a physical and intellectual environment. (pp. 31-2)

If in such poems as this there is no narrative involving several characters besides the author, then there must be style. This is present in Whitman, Pound, and Williams, but we do not seem to find it in Mr. Brathwaite. What we have instead is sociology and journal entries in a generalized, contemporary, sometimes jazzy free verse, and that is not...