SOURCE: Brown, Lloyd Wellesley. “The Cyclical Vision of Edward Brathwaite.” In West Indian Poetry, pp. 139-58. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1978.

In the following essay, Brown traces a communal voice through Brathwaite's collections Rights of Passage, Masks and Islands, which the author claims demonstrates “the cycles of black New World culture in time and space.”

It has become a custom in West Indian criticism to discuss Walcott and Brathwaite as opposites.¹ Walcott himself ventured some scepticism about the Walcott-versus-Brathwaite debate, preferring (as he did during a visit to the University of Southern California in 1974) to emphasize the similarities between himself and Brathwaite. The interest in drawing comparisons and contrasts between the two is inevitable, given the fact that they have been easily the most dominant and significant West Indian poets, especially since the 1960's. And by a similar token, Walcott's impatience with the emphasis on the differences between...