

In the second part it will put effort on understanding the definitions of cultural identity provided by Stuart Hall. The first part of this paper will define diaspora and diasporic identity in brief. This paper is an attempt to answer a few questions – what diaspora is, and what “diasporic identity” means what definition of cultural identity Hall provided in his work how Hall located the idea in Caribbean and other contexts, and what his standing was regarding this idea what Caribbean poetry is and if Caribbean poetry holds Hall’s idea of diasporic identity and what treatment this idea gets in this tradition. The objective of this paper is to present a critical analysis of Stuart Hall’s idea of “Diasporic Identity” and locating the practice of this idea in Caribbean poetry. He also widely discussed notions of cultural identity, race and ethnicity, particularly in the creation of the politics of Black diasporic identities. He worked on different ideas of contemporary cultural studies. Stuart McPhail Hall, FBA (1932 – 2014) was a Jamaican-born cultural theorist, political activist and Marxist sociologist (Encyclopædia). The poetry of Edward Kamau Brathwaite and Derek Walcott, two of the Caribbean's most prominent poets, emerge from this centre. From the inception, Caribbean poetry has engaged the chaos and violence of the history that has given it life.

But one thing they have in common is the need felt by the West Indian writer to recreate and redefine the essence of his/her black colour and West Indian experience – the need to capture the reality of the people who appear to be rootless. In doing this, as one would expect, that there would be areas of common interest among the writers, just as there would be dissimilarities among them. It is worthy to note that this alienation felt by the African in the Caribbean has become the burden of the West Indian writer attempting to capture the complexity of his society. Issues along the lines of race, wealth, class and political affiliation have caused the alienation felt by the African people in the Caribbean. Indeed, it is this very crisis that basically informs the creative imagination of the average Caribbean artist. The impact of these psychic wounds has been so profound that over the centuries, the Caribbean people have been afflicted by the crisis of identity. Historically, the Caribbean has been marred by the hands of slavery and colonization resulting in a fragmentation of the psyche of its people which is mirrored in the life and literature of the region. " To know where you are, but not who you are to struggle with the present while still not being able to fully comprehend the past-this, too, is a form of exile. In the course of your essay make comparisons with the treatment of these matters in the work of one other writer on your course. Discuss Brathwaite's explorations of history and race.
