Tropiques (1941-1945): Relational Resistance

"We wanted to publish a cultural journal because we couldn't do anything else. We wanted this journal to be an instrument which would enable Martinique to redefine itself". Hence Cesaire and those contributing to the journal outline not only an adjuration to resist fascism, the Occupation or the neo-colonial order but also the new aesthetic orientations at the heart of the deep-rooted quest to explore what constitutes Caribbeanness and Caribbean identities. This 'dissent' from the order, culture and the established aesthetics, turns into a poetry of the 'encounter' as claimed later on by Cesaire: an encounter with Latin American or African American intellectuals in accordance with the intellectual thrust of a polyphonic journal seeking to recount the political, aesthetic or formal dissent 'in resonance' with what, by Cesaire's own admission, makes the Antillean intellectual stand in 'solidarity' with his/her own people and also 'with the whole world'.