Night Vision
Kendel Hippolyte speaks through and beyond tradition. He writes in sonnets and villanelles, in idiomatic dramatic monologues that capture the rhythms of Caribbean speech, in blues and rap poems, in free verse that draws upon the long-breath incantatory lines of Ginsberg and contracts in miniaturist forms as concise as graffiti.
Price
£8.99
Author(s)
Kendel Hippolyte
ISBN number
9781845232351
Pages
80
Price
£8.99
Classification
Poetry
Country setting
St Lucia
Publication date
24 Mar 2014

Kendel Hippolyte speaks through and beyond tradition. He writes in sonnets and villanelles, in idiomatic dramatic monologues that capture the rhythms of Caribbean speech, in blues and rap poems, in free verse that draws upon the long-breath incantatory lines of Ginsberg and contracts in miniaturist forms as concise as graffiti. 

In the title poem of this collection Kendel Hippolyte lays down an ambitious challenge to himself and his reader:

"Because we see with history,
it is difficult to see through it. And yet we must
or we become it, become nothing else but history."

In rising to meet his challenge, Hippolyte draws upon all his verbal mastery and critical insight to draw sharp focus upon a nation in flux, where urbanisation expands and fragments his home of St. Lucia. The poet turns his vision upon the people, the land and the culture, and finds a microcosm of the Caribbean in the 21st Century.

Variations

Kendel Hippolyte

Kendel Hippolyte is a poet, playwright and director and sporadic researcher into areas of Saint Lucian and Caribbean arts and culture. His poetry has been published in journals and anthologies regionally and internationally. He has taught poetry workshops in various countries and performed at literary events within the Caribbean and beyond. His latest collection is Wordplanting, and he is the author of seven previous collections of poetry, including Fault Lines, which won the Bocas Poetry Prize in 2013.
View full profile