Thought this would be a piece of cake. I mean my perusal of Brathwaite’s work. We have a few things in common. I am always interested other perspectives of the diaspora.   What I find is that there seems no central theme to this collection of poems. It is a collection that reports on different matters and with different levels of intensity. The tone in the poem Colombe describes Columbus the explorer. The narrator in the poem observes the explorer come ashore on what is a pristine landscape. The language portends of the catastrophe that follows Columbus’ voyages. I found the imagery of the crabs scattering at his approach very effective in foreshadowing the plunder that was y sure to come.  In Duke, the poet pays tribute to the musician Duke Ellington describing his hands as “alligator skins.” But the tone is one of admiration:  “the old man’s hands are striding through/ the keyboard sidewalks alleyways & ages/from/ Shaka spear and guinea Bird/to/ Caribbean stilt dance/ veve/masquerade….”  p27  This poem is like a musical gumbo with references to Bessie Smith, New Orleans, cymbals, trombones. The poem ends playfully with a nod to the transformative power of music: “& look/ the old man’s alligator hands are young.” “Letter Sycorax” was a fun poem to read. Although it is written in “nation language,” some of it is easy to decode. The poet plays a lot here with the font size and style and the effect is that it holds the reader’s interest. “Soweto” begins ominously: “Out of this roar of innumerable demons/hot cinema tarzan sweat/rolling moth ball eyes yellow teeth/cries of claws slashes clanks.”  Not a happy day at the park here. The poem does not disappoint. There are images of “daughters lost,” “stripped skin,” “hunger of bones,” and many dark scenarios. But the poem is an effective commentary on the atrocity of Soweto.