Was is there or was it here?transcultural visions in Marlene Nourbese Philip's early poetry

  1. Carmona Rodríguez, Pedro
Journal:
Revista de Filología de la Universidad de La Laguna

ISSN: 0212-4130

Year of publication: 2005

Issue: 23

Pages: 49-64

Type: Article

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More publications in: Revista de Filología de la Universidad de La Laguna

Abstract

The dynamics of acculturation versus deculturation which reductively described the passage from one cultural formation to another was replaced in the last quarter of the twentieth century by the study of how cultural transference creates a personal and experiential continuum. In Canada, the writings of immigrant authors are attentive to the transcultural processes lying underneath the constitution of the migrant subject. This paper explores the early poetry by the Canadian writer of Afro-Caribbean origin Marlene Nourbese Philip to unveil that Thorns (1980) and Salmon Courage (1983) exemplify that transcultural continuum. Additionally, in both collections, the transit between cultures is parallel to the articulation of provisional locations counteracting the stasis of the centred discourses of nation and state. Imbued with the consciousness of emerging from the contact-zone and the in-between, Philip’s poetry appears unable to decide on a site of easy accommodation to favour instead mobility, instability and changing spaces.

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