Introduction: Poetics from the Global South

Postcolonial literary studies has focused on narrative prose. We argue that the field would benefit from expanding this focus to poetics from the Global South. By utilizing the rubric of the Global South, we include decolonial thought from hispanophone and lusophone domains alongside postcolonial thought, often identified with the anglophone academy. Our approach to poetics foregrounds poetry as a literary form pertinent to the project of theorizing global cultural form more broadly. Without proposing a Manichean poetics that would sever the Global South from the Global North, we take a geographically situated approach to poetics, examining how attention to poetry from the Global South might produce knowledge relevant to decolonial and postcolonial critique. Here, we define this special issue's key terms and scope, provide an overview of current scholarship within postcolonial poetry studies, and offer a brief analysis of M. NourbeSe Philip's "Discourse on the Logic of Language" in light of our proposed framework of poetics from the Global South.