Today we take the opportunity to revisit the poetry of Edward Alston Cecil Baugh (January 10, 1936 – December 9, 2023), generally known as Eddie Baugh, one of the foremost giants of Caribbean literature in our time.
The selections appear in Baugh’s collection Black Sand, published by Peepal Tree, UK. Black Sand was the winner of the Guyana Prize for Literature Caribbean Award 2014 for the Best Book of Caribbean Poetry. They do not represent the entire range of Baugh’s output, but they give vivid reminders of the fine lines he has contributed to West Indian poetry. But they provide another opportunity to appreciate the quality of verse; to read a poem like “Black Sand” for the overpowering brilliance of the verse seeking a quality possessed of the endless, fathomless representative of the natural environment with all its possibilities, such as the sand on the beach. The poet confronts this flawless nature, weighing against it, an inferior mankind.
