Resisting Genrefication: Gender and Genre in Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze’s The Fifth Figure
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Annika McPherson
Abstract
Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze is most frequently labeled Jamaica’s ‘first female dub poet.’ The discussion of her work to date exemplifies the difficulty of determining the genre boundaries not only of dub poetry, but also of poetry more generally. Thematic continuities and aesthetic overlaps show the interconnection of questions of gender and genre throughout Breeze’s poetry. Especially The Fifth Figure (2006) both illustrates and transcends classificatory desires in that it weaves poetry, memoir, and novelistic narrative prose into the structure of a Jamaican quadrille. In its musical, temporal, and spatial layering of the narrative dances of five generations of women across the Atlantic, the text also challenges dominant notions of diaspora.
Abstract
Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze is most frequently labeled Jamaica’s ‘first female dub poet.’ The discussion of her work to date exemplifies the difficulty of determining the genre boundaries not only of dub poetry, but also of poetry more generally. Thematic continuities and aesthetic overlaps show the interconnection of questions of gender and genre throughout Breeze’s poetry. Especially The Fifth Figure (2006) both illustrates and transcends classificatory desires in that it weaves poetry, memoir, and novelistic narrative prose into the structure of a Jamaican quadrille. In its musical, temporal, and spatial layering of the narrative dances of five generations of women across the Atlantic, the text also challenges dominant notions of diaspora.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Poetry and Genre: An Introduction 1
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Canonic Genres Reconsidered
- Genre and Archive Fever in Romantic Poetry: Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias” and the Sonnet 17
- Contesting and Continuing the Romantic Lyric: Eavan Boland and Kathleen Jamie 31
- Mystic Poetry Across the Ocean: Reconciling Persian Sufi Poetry and Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass 47
- The Dragon in the Gate: Modernism as a Challenge to Contemporary Poetic Genres 63
- “Now it’s failed”: The Sonnet Form in the Poetry of Philip Larkin 83
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The Politics of Genre
- Possibilities, Responsibilities: On Poetic Genres and Political Poiesis 99
- Murderous Minds: A Narratological Approach to Poems on Perpetrators 113
- “I Have Always Aspired to a More Spacious Form”: Czesław Miłosz’s Reflection on Poetic Genres in American Exile 127
- “They kept shifting shapes”: Derek Walcott’s Omeros and its Fluid Genre 139
- Diversifying the Genre: Postmodern Strategies in Patience Agbabi’s (Performance) Poetry 155
- Resisting Genrefication: Gender and Genre in Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze’s The Fifth Figure 171
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Genre and Mediality
- Crossing Genre and Media Boundaries: Poetry in Fantastic Literary Narratives and Their Film Adaptations 191
- Re-erecting Genre Distinctions?: The Sound Recordings of William Carlos Williams’s Paterson and John Montague’s The Rough Field 209
- Poetry to Music: Gil Scott-Heron’s Intermedial Performance Aesthetics 227
- The Intermedial Poetry of Rap: Words, Sounds, and Music Videos 239
- Grime Poetry: Black British Rap Lyric(s) in the Twenty-First Century 255
- Notes on Contributors 271
- Index 275
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Poetry and Genre: An Introduction 1
-
Canonic Genres Reconsidered
- Genre and Archive Fever in Romantic Poetry: Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias” and the Sonnet 17
- Contesting and Continuing the Romantic Lyric: Eavan Boland and Kathleen Jamie 31
- Mystic Poetry Across the Ocean: Reconciling Persian Sufi Poetry and Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass 47
- The Dragon in the Gate: Modernism as a Challenge to Contemporary Poetic Genres 63
- “Now it’s failed”: The Sonnet Form in the Poetry of Philip Larkin 83
-
The Politics of Genre
- Possibilities, Responsibilities: On Poetic Genres and Political Poiesis 99
- Murderous Minds: A Narratological Approach to Poems on Perpetrators 113
- “I Have Always Aspired to a More Spacious Form”: Czesław Miłosz’s Reflection on Poetic Genres in American Exile 127
- “They kept shifting shapes”: Derek Walcott’s Omeros and its Fluid Genre 139
- Diversifying the Genre: Postmodern Strategies in Patience Agbabi’s (Performance) Poetry 155
- Resisting Genrefication: Gender and Genre in Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze’s The Fifth Figure 171
-
Genre and Mediality
- Crossing Genre and Media Boundaries: Poetry in Fantastic Literary Narratives and Their Film Adaptations 191
- Re-erecting Genre Distinctions?: The Sound Recordings of William Carlos Williams’s Paterson and John Montague’s The Rough Field 209
- Poetry to Music: Gil Scott-Heron’s Intermedial Performance Aesthetics 227
- The Intermedial Poetry of Rap: Words, Sounds, and Music Videos 239
- Grime Poetry: Black British Rap Lyric(s) in the Twenty-First Century 255
- Notes on Contributors 271
- Index 275
