PHILIPSBURG/MARIGOT:--- In the current edition of Karavan, literary scholar Eva Christina Kullberg takes Swedish readers on a tour de force through contemporary Caribbean “hurricane poetry,” said Jacqueline Sample, president of House of Nehesi Publishers (HNP).
With the theme of Orkanpoesi (Hurricane Poetry), the journal was released less than two weeks before the catastrophic Hurricane Melissa caused widespread destruction in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, and Cuba in late October 2025.
Though not planned as such, Karavan is both timely and reflective, featuring key storm-ridden literature that has emerged with remarkable resilience in the region—especially following the devastating hurricanes Irma and Maria in September 2017, said Sample.
As the theme editor who wrote the extensive scholarly introduction, Kullberg, an Uppsala University professor, also coordinated the selection and translation of the poems into Swedish.
She also conducted interviews, highlighting some seven poets and their work on how disaster disrupts the lives of people and devastates the land in Dominica, St. Martin, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and Haiti.
From towering authors like Haiti’s Frankétienne to fast-emerging St. Martin voices like Faizah Tabasamu (Rochelle Ward), the Hurricane Poetry section fills 60 of the 96 pages in the Karavan literary journal (Nr. 3, 2025).
Poets and authors Fabian Adekunle Badejo, Celia Sorhaindo, Richard Georges, Ana Portnoy Brimmer, and Lasana M. Sekou are also featured in the Orkanpoesi edition of Karavan.
Some of the books from which poems were translated from their original English, Spanish, or French include the HNP titles Tangle by Tabasamu, SOS: Season of Storms by Badejo, and Hurricane Protocol by Sekou, said Sample.
