Thomas Henry MacDermot was Jamaica’s first Poet Laureate and founder of a distinct line of Jamaican poetry that drew “its life and colour from Jamaica’s sun and air” (MacFarlane, xxi). Although recognised by W. Adolphe Roberts as Jamaica’s “first native-born literary journalist, her first important poet to be inspired by history, and the scene about him, her first critic who believed in the rightness of having a literature distinct from other lands” (
Six Great Jamaicans,86), he, along with other early Caribbean writers, has suffered from relative scholarly neglect. Writing under the pseudonym “Tom Redcam”, he was also editor of the nationalistically leaning
The Jamaica Times(1900-1920), during which time he was able to facilitate the establishment of a distinct…
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Citation: Tuck, Donna-Marie. "Tom Redcam". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 October 2012 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3726, accessed 27 November 2024.]