David Dabydeen, Turner: New and Selected Poems

Ellen Howley (Dublin City University)

Ed. by Melanie Otto, Trinity College Dublin
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 4.1.1: Anglophone Writing and Culture of Central America and the Caribbean.
Vol. editors: Ronald Cummings (McMaster University), Delphine Munos (Université de Liège), Melanie Otto (Trinity College Dublin), Jak Peake (University of Essex), Abigail Ward (University of Nottingham)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1994

Places

Guyana (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Poem collection

Resources

“Turner”, a long narrative poem written by Guyanese poet David Dabydeen, was first published by Jonathan Cape in 1995. The poem is a response to British painter J.M.W. Turner’s Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying – Typhoon coming on, often called simply The Slave Ship. The painting, which was exhibited for the first time in 1840, depicts the events of what has become known as the Zongcmassacre (Frost 371). In 1781, the captain of the slave ship Zong ordered the drowning of approximately 132 African men, women and children bound for Jamaica to be sold as slaves, when the ship ran out of potable water. Slaves who died from natural causes would not be …

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2791 words

Citation: Howley, Ellen. "Turner: New and Selected Poems". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 March 2019 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=12726, accessed 23 November 2024.]

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