Caliban Theory
—after Beenie Man and Derek Walcott
who am i?
either i’m nobody or
i’m the cramped quarters
of any vessel voyaging the sea
with contraband and trafficked cargo
who am i?
either i’m nobody or
i’m the rum barrel hollowed out
and beaten into percussion
who am i?
either i’m nobody or
i’m a pidgin picking its way
into a creole—any savage tongue
consumed again and again
until it can be repeated
who am i?
either i’m nobody or
i’m the plátano deep frying sweet
in oil or i’m the plátano fry-smash-
fried into tostones
who am i?
either i’m nobody or
i’m the hibiscus steamed
with ginger and sugar
and allspice and clove
who am i?
either i’m nobody or
i’m a field song morphing
out each new generation’s lips
who am i?
either i’m nobody or
i’m the pilón smashing
plátano and garlic and chicarrón
into mofongo or i’m the pilón
grinding allspice and clove
and fennel and cinnamon into a jerk
who am i?
either i’m nobody or
i’m this tripped-up tongue
tryna wind its way through
english, spanish, and patois
smashed and ground-up together
who am i?
either i’m nobody or
i’m sugarcane fields burnt or i’m
the the scotch bonnet burn
in the curry chicken or
i’m the ron añejo burning
its way down the throat
who am i?
either i’m nobody or
i’m a poco man jam
morphing into a dembow
who am i?
either i’m nobody or
i’m the poems chanted
over and over on the slave ship
until they all mishmash smashed
into a whole new song
who am i? who am i? who am i?
either i’m nobody or
i’m all of the nations
or i am no nation or i’m a
singular, ephemeral nation—
the one i sing into being with this
savage tongue, the one that disappears
as soon as the sound stops shaking
in the ocean salt air
Copyright © 2025 by Malcolm Friend. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 18, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
“Living and writing in diaspora, I’m interested in the echoes that break into these disparate parts that linger across geographies until they remerge and morph into something new—an obsession born of being descended from people broken until they morphed into something new. One day, I was listening to Beenie Man ask, ‘Who am I?’ and I kept hearing Derek Walcott insist in response, ‘Either I’m nobody, or I’m a nation.’ I wanted to merge and morph the echoes of Beenie Man’s question and Walcott’s answer together into a poem of all the pieces I still carry.”
—Malcolm Friend
Malcolm Friend
Malcolm Friend is a poet of Black, Puerto Rican, and Jamaican ancestry. He is the author of Our Bruises Kept Singing Purple (Inlandia Books, 2018), selected by Cynthia Arrieu-King as the winner of the 2017 Hillary Gravendyk Prize. Friend also codedited, with Kim Sousa and Alan Chazaro, the anthology Até Mais: Latinx Futurisms (Deep Vellum, 2024). A CantoMundo Fellow, Friend is a high school English teacher and lives in Austin, Texas.