Nota Benes, September 2017

Written by staff writer for World Literature Today on Saturday, September 30th, 2017

This challenging collection of poetry marks Kamau Brathwaite’s departure from the United States back to his native Barbados—a cultural “lynching” that references the collection’s evocative title. With typography, layout, graphics, syntax, and spelling all on the table as fair game for play, each poem in Strange Fruit demands slow consumption and digestion before moving on to the next.