The 2016 Nobel Prize awarded to Bob Dylan “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition” drew renewed attention to the literary dimensions of song. This framework, when considered in Caribbean contexts, raises questions that merit further investigation. How have musicians and musical traditions in the region generated literary resonances? How might literary production be understood through its engagement with musical forms? How are the synergies between music and literature in the Caribbean shaped by media and technology? We approach both “music” and “literature” broadly to encompass practices of writing on and off the page; dance and popular musics; film, theater, choral, concert, and art music; etc.

Although each Caribbean island possesses distinct linguistic, historical, and colonial trajectories, music and literature frequently intersect. Much existing scholarship on this cross pollination has remained within the disciplinary boundaries of literary studies or popular music studies. Our aim is to gather innovative, cross-disciplinary essays that illuminate the many ways these forms are inseparable. Possible areas of focus include, but are not limited to:

• Literary figures whose work engages musical forms or aesthetics (e.g., Jacques Stephen Alexis, Frankétienne, Alejo Carpentier, Fernando Ortiz, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Leonardo Padura, Pedro Henríquez Ureña, Luis Rafael Sánchez, Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá, Tato Laviera, Víctor Hernández Cruz, Rita Indiana);
• Musicians whose lyrics or compositional practices draw on literary traditions (e.g., Rafael Hernández, Silvio Rodríguez, Juan Luis Guerra, Rita Indiana);
• Singers and songwriters who conceptualize performance or composition through literary or poetic frameworks (e.g., soneo);
• Musical settings or reinterpretations of literary texts (e.g., José Martí, Nicolás Guillén);
• Choral arrangements that adapt or reframe literary materials (e.g., Electo Silva);
• Traditions of vocal improvisation grounded in classical poetic forms;
• Poetics of music in theater and film;
• Hip-hop and related contemporary genres in which poetic practice is central (e.g., Tego Calderón, Bad Bunny).