SOURCE: Pollard, Velma. “Francina and the Turtle and All the Others: Women in EKB.” In For the Geography of the Soul: Emerging Perspectives on Kamau Brathwaite, edited by Timothy J. Reiss, pp. 43-50. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 2001.

In the following essay, Pollard examines the allusions and rhythms of Brathwaite poems that depict women as rescuers.

Francina

He chooses Francina, a simple woman. She who “used to scale / fish in the market.” He makes her save the “humpbacked turtle with the shell-fish eyes …” (IS [Islands] 215).

Brathwaite, railing against the destruction of a park, something precious reserved for the use of the people, chooses a woman to be the rescuer. The turtle she saves is a symbol of what is dearest to him, to all people of similar mind-the island with all that is natural to it.

The poem rails against “the Mayor and Council / thin brown impressive...