“Carib Being Water”: On the Lyrical Intertextuality of the Sea-Space in Afro-Caribbean, Indo-Caribbean, and Afro-Central American Women Poets

The ensuing discussion focuses on mobility enabled by large bodies of water departing from the premise that the sea is History. The essay argues that the lyrical representation of the sea-space in Afro- Caribbean, Indo-Caribbean, and Afro-Central American poetry stands as an intertextual trope by which the “repeating island” can be traced along a palimpsestic overlapping of historical occurrences. Focusing on the correlation between mobility and power geometries in lyrical narratives concerning the middle passage, the kala pani, and the conformation of Afro-Central America, the repeating island is sketched along the mobile metaphors of un/arrival, im/mortality, uproutings and transrootings.