Limbo (poem)
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'Limbo' is a poem by Edward Kamau Brathwaite.
It describes the similarity between a limbo dance and the transportation of African slaves into the West Indies and America. There is a strong sense of position throughout the play. The limbo stick is "in front of me", then "over me", "down down down", then "coming up...up up up". This is how a slave would have moved on a ship to the plantations, he would have seen the ship "in front" of him, then "down down down" into the lower decks, then "coming up...and the dumb gods are raising me". The poem starts with a conjunction and has no punctuation until the very end, much like a limbo dance keeps flowing until the end, and the endless flow of slaves into the Caribbean.
The poem has been included in the AQA Anthology for study at GCSE, in Cluster 1 Poems from other cultures.
Seamus Heaney has also written a poem called Limbo.
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