ABSTRACT
The early 1990s introduced author to the poetry of the Caribbean Grace Nichols, and since then part of my research time has been dedicated to delve into her poetics of the body, a theme which is one of the cores of her work. The poets' views of the body of this black woman are alternative yet complementary, especially when read from a feminist ecocritical perspective. The body of Jackie Kay's "Hottentot Venus" is also within the notion of the female grotesque, which Russo associates with three forms in whose contexts women are involved: pregnant, ageing, and irregular. Grace Nichols' poem, "Thoughts Drifting through the Fat Black Woman's Head While Having a Bubble Bath", on the other hand, deals with Baartman's body in a totally different way. Grace Nichols and Jackie Kay's poems are liberatory and emancipatory, and they help us view the world more positively without losing our critical sense.
