Heron’s Canoe

This is a collection of poetry that combines a personal voice, lyric craft and deep scholarship in Diasporic African culture and Caribbean history. Heron’s Canoe is one of a growing series of literary titles that explore African derived religions in the Caribbean. Heron’s Canoe explores the intersections and folds within the history of the collision between the cultures of Africa, Europe and the Caribbean. Focusing on the journey of the Yoruba gods with slaves from West Africa, on resonances with Amerindian myths of the scattering of their gods, and on the transformations of each within the creolising, hybridising culture of the Caribbean, Mark De Brito’s poem is a highly original meditation on the both the nature of the African diaspora and the nature of history. He makes imaginative use of found text from historical sources, translations of Yoruba prayers and invocations, but there is always a deeply personal tone to these carefully crafted poems.