Looting Hummingbirds : Selected Poems of Daniel Thaly

Daniel Thaly’s shifting prestige emerges through a lingering portrait of a poet’s volatile century-long struggle.

In the first quarter of the 20th century, Daniel Thaly from Dominica, then a British Caribbean colony, was one of France’s most celebrated poets. He had studied medicine in France and lived there as a young man until his return to his birthplace. His illustrious reputation - based on his eight volumes of poetry - crumbled when the anti-colonial radicals of the 1930s castigated Thaly for his poems’ insistence on classical form, nature and lyricism. From then on he barely wrote. Was it this trauma that caused a nervous breakdown? Or a failed love affair? He wrote in French, and until now his poems have never been translated into English.

This volume of selected poems (in French and English) provides for the first time a glimpse into his emotions and passion for Dominica while the introduction collates fragments of what little is known of his life - his rise to literary fame and his abrupt descent into obscurity.

Professor Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert lives in New York City and works at Vassar College where she is professor of Caribbean culture and literature in the department of Hispanic Studies.