Edward Kamau Brathwaite

Of all the poems written by Edward Kamau Brathwaite over his long and quite productive writing life, ‘The Day the First Snow Fell’ is one of his finest moments. Brathwaite, who died this past week, has written many monumental poems, long and short, experimental, and traditional, but mostly, he has written poems that reflect his life’s experiences. ‘The Day the First Snow Fell’ falls squarely into that category.

When I first heard him read poetry back in the early 90’s, he took time to explain the nature of the poem and what he was channeling — his life. But before I comment on that, here’s the poem in full, as it originally appeared in 1958, in The Caribbean Quarterly:

The poem later appears in his 1975 book, Other Exiles and does not contain the stanza splits. That book is dominated by the travel in Brathwaite’s life, from Barbados to Europe, and back. He was studying and writing during those years, and as the book jacket notes, it is his “first collection of shorter poems written over a period of 25 years.”

According to Brathwaite, on the night I saw him read, the poem is all about when he was in England, and he saw and experienced snow for the first time. Being from the Caribbean…