A Poetics of Performance offers fresh readings of fictions by post-1950s writers Earl Lovelace, Merle Collins, Marie-Elena John, Marlon James and Colin Channer alongside calypso, reggae and different modes of Caribbean oral storytelling. Carol Bailey elucidates what may be termed the most consequential aspect of Caribbean literary self-fashioning: an "inward turn" to the expressive resources and discursive tools of folk and popular culture.